My Birth Parents and Husband Chose the Adopted Daughter, So I Vanished Chapter 02

My Birth Parents and Husband Chose the Adopted Daughter, So I Vanished Chapter 02

The sharp smell of disinfectant was the first thing I noticed when I woke.

For a moment, I thought I’d finally made it back.

Then a familiar voice reached me.

“Evelyn. You’re awake.”

I opened my eyes and saw Adrian sitting beside my hospital bed at Bellevue Hospital.

His eyes were bloodshot.

“If you’d landed even a foot either way, you’d have missed the rescue cushion. If you hadn’t woken up when you did, I’d have gone back to that roof and jumped after you.”

He sounded completely sincere.

His hand wrapped tightly around mine, as if he were terrified I might disappear from his life again.

But when he lowered his head to kiss my forehead, I saw the love bite peeking out from beneath the collar of his shirt.

Serena’s rose perfume still clung to him.

I’d never paid much attention to those things before.

Now, the disgust hit me so hard that I started retching on the spot.

Adrian immediately summoned the Moretti Family’s private medical team.

After the examination, the attending physician looked grim.

“She’s chronically malnourished and has suffered repeated physical trauma, but the most serious problem is her ongoing trauma response. She can’t take any more severe stress.”

The doctor hesitated before adding,

“The last time I was called to the Carter estate, she was already hyperventilating and convulsing. Another ten minutes and she could have been in critical condition. Don, you need to start taking her mental health seriously.”

I closed my eyes.

The scene from that day surfaced in my mind again.

Bruno lay on the kitchen floor, his eyes dull and lifeless.

That Doberman had been the friend who stayed with me the longest after I came to this world.

When I first returned to the Carter family, everyone criticised me for not knowing how to use silver cutlery, for having an accent they considered common, and for not knowing which branch of the family’s power structure each elder controlled.

Only Bruno waited outside my bedroom door every day.

Then Serena gave him drugged milk.

Afterwards, she had the kitchen prepare the meat.

That night, she deliberately told me it was ordinary stew.

She waited until I’d finished eating before telling me the truth.

Adrian felt me trembling and pulled me into his arms.

Then he looked at his underboss, his voice low and utterly cold.

“Find out who was responsible. I don’t care who it was. Make them pay.”

At that moment, the hospital room door opened.

Serena walked in wearing a sharply tailored black suit, the insignia reserved for members of the Moretti Family’s inner circle pinned to her chest.

Tears already glistened in her eyes, and she walked in wearing the wounded expression of a victim.

But when her gaze landed on me, it instantly turned cold.

Then, without warning, she dropped to her knees.

She was holding a leather whip from the training room at the Moretti estate.

“Adrian, this is all my fault. If I’d known Bruno’s death would upset my sister this badly, I wouldn’t have had him put down, even after he bit me.”

She held out the whip.

“My sister hates me, so punish me for her, then.”

Adrian froze.

My parents entered the room right behind her.

The moment my father, Richard, saw Serena kneeling on the floor, his hands clenched into fists.

My mother, Margaret, immediately looked anxious when she saw her on her knees.

But the second they turned towards me, they put on expressions of concern for their biological daughter.

Adrian reached down to help Serena up.

“Get up. What’s all this about?”

Serena stubbornly refused to move.

“If she doesn’t get it out of her system, she’ll only hate me more. I’ve been trained for this life since I was little. A few lashes won’t hurt me. But she grew up outside our world. She can’t take being treated harshly. Punish me properly if that’s what it takes to satisfy her.”

The way she said it made it sound as though I were the one using my status to bully her.

Even the nurse standing nearby frowned at me.

Serena had always been good at this.

She never needed to accuse me outright.

All she had to do was remind everyone that I was the latecomer, the “biological daughter who grew up outside the family”, and they would believe her without question.

I used to explain myself.

Now, there was no point.

I reached out and took the whip from her hand.

I only meant to toss it aside.

But Adrian suddenly grabbed my wrist.

“That’s enough, Evelyn.”

His grip was so hard that my wrist immediately reddened beneath his fingers.

“I’ll deal with Serena. Stay out of it.”

I looked up at him.

There was caution in his eyes, the kind he usually reserved for enemies.

He genuinely thought I was about to whip Serena.

Just because she was Serena.

And because I was the woman they’d already decided knew none of the rules, was consumed by jealousy, and had used blood ties as an excuse to come back and steal Serena’s place.

Suddenly, I laughed.

I’d thought I was already numb.

But somehow, a spark of anger still managed to rise inside me.

“Adrian.”

My grip tightened around the whip.

“Why are you so sure I’d hurt her?”

The next second, I jerked the whip up.

But the whip wasn’t aimed at Serena.

I swung it straight at Adrian.