After Our Entire Family Was Reborn Adopted Brother Went Insane Chapter 04
Leo’s grip tightened. I couldn’t breathe. My face burned red.
I looked to my adoptive parents.
“Dad… Mom… please…”
My adoptive mother turned her face away and covered her mouth, sobbing.
My adoptive father’s jaw was set, his voice low.
“Summer. If what Leo says is true… consider this your way of repaying everything we’ve given you these past ten years.”
“We’ll call the police. They’ll get you out.”
I closed my eyes. Despair settled over me like a cold tide.
Then the bedroom door swung open.
A puzzled male voice broke through the silence.
“The door wasn’t latched — I hope you don’t mind, I let myself in. I was looking for all of you.”
My vision was going dark. I couldn’t make out who had entered.
The hand around my throat suddenly released.
My legs gave way. I slid toward the floor.
An arm caught me around the waist, steadying me before I fell.
I looked up — and found myself staring into Ethan Wentworth’s eyes.
What was he doing here?
“Whatever the issue is, there are better ways to handle it than this.”
Ethan turned back to the room, but his gaze returned to my face.
“The day of the engagement lottery — why weren’t you there?”
Before I could answer, Leo erupted.
He stared at Ethan’s hand resting on my waist, his eyes burning.
“Summer, you shameless — I knew you couldn’t let it go!”
“Mr. Wentworth, don’t be taken in by her. She’s been running around behind everyone’s backs. She came home riddled with disease.”
“We were only trying to teach her a lesson. That’s all.”
The words spilled out of him, vicious and unhinged.
The moment Ethan heard them, he let go of me.
He said nothing more. He simply turned and walked out of the room.
My adoptive parents followed him out, whispering to him in the hallway. I couldn’t hear a single word.
The door swung shut again.
Leo turned back to me, slow and deliberate, fury simmering behind his eyes.
“Well, well. Summer.”
“Right in front of me, and you still tried to play your games with him. Is there anything you won’t stoop to?”
He drove his foot into my stomach.
The pain folded me in half.
But Leo grabbed my hair and dragged me up, slamming me against the wall again.
“Tell me! Where did you hide Lily?”
“I didn’t—”
“Still lying!”
He pulled out a folding knife and pressed it to my cheek.
Then, a sharp ringtone shattered the silence.
Leo froze.
He released me and reached for his phone.
“That’ll be the kidnappers.”
“Summer, I’ll tell them they grabbed the wrong person.”
“We’ll trade you for Lily. That’s fair, isn’t it?”
Ice spread through me from the inside out.
In my last life, those kidnappers had taken the money and killed her anyway.
They were cold-blooded criminals. They didn’t honor deals.
The moment they got their hands on me, it wouldn’t matter what the Harringtons did afterward.
I would have no way out.
I watched Leo press the answer button, a look of victory on his face.
But the next second — he heard the voice on the other end of the line, and went utterly still.
