Locked in the Sterilizer: My Sister's Cruelty Chapter 2

“Go unlock the cabinet for Finn,” Joelle ordered coolly. “Tell him if he doesn’t want this to happen again, he’ll come and apologize to Denis properly.”

The bodyguard opened his mouth, then closed it again. He simply bowed and left the room.

Denis tugged at Joelle’s arm. “Sister, once Finn apologizes, let’s just forget about it. You should be nice to him, so he doesn’t feel left out.” He added, his voice a soft whisper, “If he leaves, you won’t have any family left.”

A look of contempt flashed in Joelle’s eyes, but she smoothed it over with a fond pat on Denis’s head. “It would be better if he left. A person with such a vile mouth doesn’t deserve to be my brother.”

“If it weren’t for the horrible things he said to you, you wouldn’t have gotten so sick. Denis, you’re just too kind, too soft-hearted. That’s why he’s always bullying you.”

A fire of rage burned in her eyes, but it vanished the moment Denis looked at her, as if she were afraid the very heat of her anger might harm him.

I thought being dead meant I couldn’t feel pain anymore. But watching this, an old, familiar ache returned, and ghostly tears fell from my eyes.

A week ago, for Joelle’s birthday, I had bought her a little orange kitten, a surprise.

But I found Denis in the garden, holding a lighter to its tail. He’d looked up at me with a smirk. “Don’t think that just because you found a cat that looks like her old one, you can win her back from me.”

I had flown into a rage, shielding the terrified animal and screaming at him.

Joelle had walked in at that exact moment.

Denis immediately burst into tears and threw himself into the icy fountain in the courtyard. It was the middle of winter. He was wearing a thick, absorbent cotton jacket, and he sank like a stone.

When they pulled him out, he was pale and barely breathing.

“Sister,” he’d gasped, his voice a faint whisper. “If Finn can’t accept me… if he wants me to die… then I will.”

“My only regret is that I won’t get to protect you. You have to take care of yourself, sister. In the next life, I want to be your brother again.”

That day, Joelle canceled everything. She carried Denis to the hospital in her arms, not even bothering with an umbrella as the cold rain soaked her to the bone.

In the end, Denis was diagnosed with an acute case of the flu.

I stood outside the hospital room, watching her clutch his hand, her voice a desperate plea. “Denis, please. Please get better. Don’t leave me all alone…”

It was laughable. My own sister, my flesh and blood. A powerful, commanding woman who ran a corporate empire, now acting out a deathbed drama over a common cold with a complete stranger.

It was only when she was dragging me by the hair, shoving me into that sterilization cabinet, that I finally understood. In her heart, Denis was her only brother.

And I… I was nothing.

“How could I have a brother with such a filthy, disgusting mouth?” she’d screamed at me. “Denis almost died! Even when he recovers, he’ll be weak for a long time!”

“I’m telling you, Finn, don’t think for a second that just because we share the same blood, you can do whatever you want!”

“You’ll stay in there until Denis is better. You’ll stay in there until you learn to be sorry!”

And to make sure I learned my “lesson,” she had the bodyguard chain the door shut.

And now, only because Denis was in a good mood, she was deigning to let me out.

She didn’t know.

I was never getting out.