The Abysmal Flower foretells it all: the Agrece family will burn, their reign of poison and blade ended by a heroine's hand. Roxana has read those pages a hundred times. She knows which brother gets kidnapped, which daughter survives, and exactly when the reckoning comes. But when her father drags Cassis Pedelian into their estate's torture chambers, the timeline fractures.

She can play her scripted part—wait for the heroine, watch the pieces fall. Or she can gamble on the captive in the cell below, the one person who might help her survive what's coming. In a house built on betrayal, she offers him a deal neither should accept. Can two people bred for deceit trust each other long enough to dismantle an empire of blood, or will the poison claim them first?

Also known as: How to Protect the Heroine's Older Brother, Как защитить старшего брата главной героини, 保护女主角哥哥的方法.