Dave's POV
IN THE PRESENT.
I stood there beside my brother, Dominic. It was like a live-action drama, and the star was my brand-new "stepsister."
Audrey.
After almost shitting my self when i saw the 'guide' who called him self Dex. I realized somethings. One, i was transmigrated into a novel. And this isn't an ordinary world, ir runs with supernatural abilities. Dex's word still echo in my mind. Do not act out of character. Consequences are severe.
Although i asked him to explain more, but he said that would be after i have done my quest.
Easy for it, or he to say. The "real" Dave, whose memories and instincts were now tangled up with mine, saw women as entertainment or pawns.
He wouldn't feel this twist in his gut seeing some guy rip a woman's shirt and order a guard to strip her. The real Dave would have laughed.
I didn't laugh.
The savage little smile on her face as the guards restrained her… that wasn't the smile of a victim. That was the smile of someone who'd just evened a score and found it deeply satisfying.
This wasn't the spineless pushover the novel's plot had described.
"What a fascinating spectacle," I said, pitching my voice to cut through the noise.
Spike looked shocked at my interruption, then his face morphed into a greasy, respectful mask. "Mr. Moreno! Sir, I was just... dealing with this crazy freak. She assaulted me for no reason!"
I hummed, a low, non-committal sound. I walked closer to him. He straightened up, a flicker of hope in his eyes, like a dog expecting a treat. I reached out and casually dusted his ruined suit jacket.
"Is that so?" I asked mildly
He nodded eagerly, like an idiot. "Yes, sir. Absolutely. Just handling some trash."
The memories of this world's Dave surged up. They were full of casual cruelty, of asserting dominance for the sheer pleasure of it. This was the script. And for once, I didn't mind following it.
My hand, which had been brushing his jacket, snapped up and tangled in his hair. His eyes went wide a second before dragged him and slammed his face down onto the hood of his sports car. A new, beautiful dent bloomed under his forehead.
I let him go. He stumbled back, screaming, hands flying to his gushing nose. "What did I do?! Why?!"
I looked at my knuckles, flexing my hand. "That's a lesson," I said coldly. "For touching my stepsister." I leaned in slightly, lowering my voice. "No one bullies anyone in my family. Only me."
I felt a wave of self-disgust. The mantra of a petty tyrant. But i have to follow the script.
I turned to look at her. Audrey. Watching me with those sharp, unreadable eyes from between the guards. She looked exactly like her.
Spike was blubbering, blood dripping through his fingers. "Audrey… is your sister?"
I didn't answer him. I just turned my gaze back to her.
I stopped in front of the guards holding her. "Release her."
They hesitated, their eyes darting from my calm face to Spike's bloody wreckage.
"I won't repeat myself."
Their hands fell away from her arms like she'd burned them.
Audrey straightened her torn shirt with a defiant jerk, not even trying to cover the rip. She met my gaze, and there was no gratitude there. Only a fierce, blazing independence.
"I didn't need your help," she said, her voice clear and cutting.
A real smile, the first genuine one since I woke up in this hell, almost broke through. Of course you didn't.
"Did I say I was helping?" I replied, falling back into the lazy, arrogant tone that i have to fake. "You were making a scene on a public street. It was… unsightly. We're just tidying up." I gestured toward the open door of our car. "Get in. Unless you'd prefer to continue your discussion with Spike?"
She glanced at the sobbing man, then back at me, weighing her options. I saw the calculation in her eyes.
With a final, dismissive look at the whole Blake circus, she walked past me, her head high, and slid into the back seat without another word.
Dominic let out a low whistle as we got in after her. "Feisty," he murmured, amused. He walked toward me, his earlier smirk gone.
"Won't Father be pissed you did this? You know Spike is going to cry to his family, and they'll tell our father."
I wiped my knuckles on a handkerchief. "Don't worry about that," I said, my tone dismissing the threat. Right now, the priority was the woman in the back of the car. "Just get in the car. We are leaving"
Dominic looked at me, a flicker of hesitation in his eyes that was too real for the character he was supposed to be. He held my gaze for a beat too long before finally nodding and sliding into the passenger seat.
I took the driver's seat. I reversed the sleek car with a controlled aggression, the tires scraping against the gravel as I turned us away from the gawking guards and the bleeding mess that was Spike. I started driving the path to the Moreno estate.
My mind was a riot of questions, each one more pressing than the last.
First, Dominic. The Dominic from the memories was a mirror of me: arrogant, ruthless, viewing emotion as a weakness.
The man beside me now felt… different. Could he be like me? Transmigrated? Stuck in a role just trying to survive? It was a dangerous theory, but it was the only one that fit the cracks in his façade.
Then, there was her. Audrey.
My fingers tightened on the steering wheel. The rearview mirror showed her profile, a stark silhouette against the passing streetlights. She looked exactly like her. The woman from my real world. The one I'd watched from a distance for years in the office, the one with the sharp mind and sharper wit, the one whose laugh could cut through the dreariest board meeting.
The one I'd been secretly, hopelessly in love with. Seeing her face here, in this impossible place, was a physical shock. A cruel joke.
I still had my own face. So why hadn't she recognized me? Or… was the woman in the back seat not the woman I knew at all?
What am i even saying? It can't be the Audrey i know.
But the Audrey of this novel was supposed to be a victim. A pawn. She was supposed to absorb the abuse and plot a clumsy, failed revenge. But her defiance look made me think twice.
It made a terrifying, hopeful suspicion coil in my chest. Was it possible? Could she be… her? Not just a lookalike, but the same soul, thrust into this madness too?
My chaotic thoughts were sliced clean through by her commanding voice from the back seat.
"Stop the car."
I didn't slow down. "Why?"
"I've reached my street. I need to leave."
I glanced at the shabby, dimly lit lane we were passing. It was a world away from the Moreno Estate. "Didn't you hear me back there?" I asked, forcing the familiar arrogant drawl.
"You're our stepsister now. That means you live with us. I haven't accepted such an… embarrassing woman as my stepsister yet, so don't make this more difficult for me than it already is."