I Read Their Tragic Fates, and My Family Reads My Mind?

Hector Donovan’s indiscriminate lashing out at everyone scared the daylights out of the major influencers involved in the incident.

Faced with Hector Donovan putting them on blast with direct @s, they all cowered in silence, lying low.

Some media outlets tried to cook up a juicy story about Hector involving illegal drugs to divert public attention, but the police report, which specifically emphasized he "never went to the hotel," completely shut down their little schemes.

While Hector Donovan was busy battling trolls online, Arabella Donovan was also following the developments to help herself sort out the story’s timeline.

In the original plot, Hector Donovan didn’t manage to avoid the honey-trap scheme at the hotel.

When the story broke, he was still at the police station cooperating with the investigation, desperately trying to prove his innocence, and wasn’t released so quickly.

So naturally, he couldn’t be sitting leisurely on the couch arguing with haters online like he was now, having lost the initiative early on.

But there was one particularly dissonant point in all of this: Hector Donovan’s identity.

Hector Donovan wasn’t just the famous star, Best Actor Donovan; he was also the second young master of the prestigious Donovan Family.

Even if Hector rarely mentioned this in the industry, would the Donovan Family really stand by and do nothing when he was in trouble? Would they not back up their own son?

The answer was obviously no. So how on earth did Jacqueline Jennings succeed so easily in the original plot?

Arabella flipped back and forth through several books related to the Donovan Family and finally found a point where the plotlines intersected.

’Ahhh... It’s that lawless madman!’

A lawless madman?! Who?

Mr. Donovan, who was busy on the phone with Justin to get an update; Mrs. Donovan, who was furiously gossiping online with Eloise; and Hector Donovan, who was in a phone-in-hand flame war with haters spanning hundreds of replies—all of them stopped what they were doing to secretly pay attention to Arabella.

The "lawless madman" Arabella mentioned was none other than the biological father of the child in Claire Bishop’s belly. His name was Jasper Jacobs, though whether that was his real name was impossible to verify.

According to the original novel’s description, he was an ultimate boss-level character who appeared out of nowhere. No one knew his origins. To the public, he had a trendy yet generic English name, Justin, and went by the nickname Jacobs.

This Jacobs and Claire Bishop were living out the script of a classic, angsty romance novel, one that combined melodrama, R-rated content, the runaway-with-a-baby trope, and morally bankrupt themes all in one.

Claire Bishop’s father was an undercover agent who had infiltrated a criminal organization. After his cover was blown, he was murdered by Jacobs’s subordinates.

When Claire Bishop learned the truth, she infiltrated the organization to avenge her father, but she was inevitably discovered by the male lead.

But unlike her father, Claire Bishop caught Jacobs’s eye. She was imprisoned, abused, and "trained," eventually becoming one of his many mistresses. We’ll skip the hundred-thousand-plus words of unmentionable content here...

Anyway, somewhere amidst all the "training" and abuse, the plot went off the rails. The cold, promiscuous gang leader turned into a warrior for pure love, and the brave, resolute avenging heroine became a doting wife with her head full of nothing but love.

And the reason this love-addled female lead ran away with the baby wasn’t because she suddenly had an attack of conscience and remembered her deceased parents; it was because she discovered the male lead was keeping other mistresses besides her.

The three people listening: "..."

Mrs. Donovan and Hector Donovan were relatively calm, but Mr. Donovan’s face was flush with anger, the hand holding his phone trembling slightly.

Claire Bishop’s father had saved his life years ago; it was no exaggeration to call him his savior. Because of that, the two had formed a deep, brotherly bond.

Mr. Donovan knew better than anyone how upright, kind, and utterly hateful of evil the man was. How could he have ever expected his daughter to fall in love with a piece of trash like that? And he was her father’s killer, no less! How could she? How *dared* she!

’Are some people’s morals this warped nowadays? Who on earth even likes stories like this? Just because he only gave the verbal order for his subordinate to commit the murder, instead of doing it himself, she can shamelessly pin all the blame on the subordinate who did the deed and date the mastermind with a clear conscience?’

’Isn’t this just a real-life version of that trope? "My father’s murder is a trivial matter! Dad, all you lost was your life, but what I lost was my love!"’

The three eavesdroppers were instantly hit with a faceful of melodrama, breaking out in goosebumps.

But you had to admit, the flavor was spot-on!

’According to the original plot, after Claire Bishop ran away with the baby, the first person she found was her number one simp—that radiology doctor from the Third Hospital. She relied on him to get a temporary place to stay, but then she decided he was too poor to support the luxurious and debauched lifestyle she’d grown accustomed to in the criminal underworld.’

’So while dodging the pursuit of Jacobs’s men, she started scouting for a suitable backup guy to take the fall for her and the baby. In the end, she settled on my eldest brother, that total sucker.’

The three people present: "PFFT..."

Justin, who had switched from calling to texting with Mr. Donovan: "..."

Arabella thought about her eldest brother’s fate in the original plot and couldn’t help but clutch her chest in fear.

’Not long after Claire Bishop moved into the Donovan manor to carry her pregnancy to term—with the help of simp number one—she was found by one of Jacobs’s trusted men. And then...’

And then?

The others were dying of curiosity, wishing they could crawl into Arabella’s brain and pull out the rest of the story.

’Because she was afraid Jacobs would hold it against her, Claire Bishop tearfully complained to him that it was Justin who had coveted her beauty, kidnapped her, and imprisoned her in his home. She claimed she was only forced to play along with him to protect their child, and that it was all Justin’s fault.’

The three: ???

Justin: !!!

’And then...’

...And then again! Just spit it out!

’Jacobs believed her.’

The three: "..."

Justin, receiving the live play-by-play: "..." ’I have a million fucking things to say and I don’t know where to start.’

’Actually, you can’t really blame him for believing it. After all, that’s how he treated Claire Bishop himself. Putting himself in another’s shoes... no, that’s not it. He probably just enjoyed the sense of superiority he got from watching Claire, who was full of her own little schemes, having to spin pretty lies to deceive him.’

Everyone: "..." ’Is this guy a pervert?’

No, he *was* a pervert. An extremely dangerous one!

’The best proof is that Justin was the first victim, but not the last. Afterward, Claire Bishop used similar methods to screw over her backup options number two, three, four, and five. You could say no one she targeted was spared. And Jacobs chose to believe her every single time, turning around and serving these men a fresh "bento box" of broken limbs, forced suicides, and ruined families.’

Justin, who had almost been served that bento box: "..." ’Never mind anyone else, I was truly framed!’

Arabella, who had forced herself to mentally flip through the whole disgusting book one more time, finally couldn’t help but ask a question from the depths of her soul.

’So, is it trendy now to write main characters as if they’re villains? How did these two pieces of human garbage end up as the male and female leads? What good qualities do they possibly have to deserve being the main characters? You two can play your kinky little game of "she flees, he pursues, she can never escape," but does everyone else deserve to be the stepping stones for your relationship? Disgusting! So disgusting! Absolutely disgusting!’