Chapter 3

Every relative shut their door on me.

Uncle Robert sighed over the phone and told me I couldn’t beat Lucas. I should accept my fate.

The others wouldn’t even answer.

With the few hundred dollars I had left, I rented a room at a cheap motel in a run-down neighborhood.

I lay awake all night.

Eventually, I connected to the motel’s Wi-Fi, hoping to see what was happening beyond those four walls.

That was when I realized the world hadn’t simply abandoned me.

It had nailed me to a public wall of shame.

The number-one trending topic was:

#HeiressDrivesMotherToDeath

I tapped it and found a carefully edited video.

It opened with me standing beside Mom’s hospital bed, raising my voice at her impatiently.

Then it cut to Chloe holding a sugary milkshake, gently guiding the straw to Mom’s lips.

Next came the footage of me lunging toward Chloe at the memorial, labeled as an “attack on a kindhearted caregiver.”

The part where Lucas shoved me to the floor had been cut.

With mournful music playing underneath, I became an abusive, ungrateful daughter consumed by jealousy.

I’d raised my voice because Mom’s blood sugar was dangerously high.

Her doctor had ordered dietary restrictions, but she insisted on drinking the sugary shakes Chloe brought her. She even complained that my homemade broth was bland.

I’d argued with her because I wanted to protect her health.

Now everyone saw it as undeniable proof that I’d abused her.

I opened Lucas’s social media profile. In the early hours of the morning, he’d posted a statement thousands of words long.

He painted himself as a long-suffering victim, exploited for years by a spoiled heiress.

His affair with Chloe became a brave pursuit of true love.

The cruelest part was what he said about Mom’s death.

According to him, years of emotional abuse from me had driven her into depression and destroyed her health.

He was the devoted almost-son who had quietly cared for her, only to fail to save her in the end.

The comments overflowed with sympathy and praise.

Meanwhile, furious strangers had taken over every one of my accounts.

Someone had even posted my home address.

With nowhere else to go, I finally fled to the old house Mom had left behind.

It was my last refuge.

The living room and bedrooms had been ransacked.

I knew Lucas and Chloe had been there, looking for something.

Numb, I walked into the study. It was just as wrecked.

Books covered the floor. Mom’s favorites had been tossed into a corner like garbage.

I crouched to pick them up, but tears kept falling.

Then a painting on the wall caught my eye.

It was a simply framed painting called *The Halloween Regatta*. It had always hung in the least noticeable spot beside the bookcase.

Now the frame sat crooked from the search, exposing a sliver of metal behind it.

My heart skipped.

I walked over, straightened the frame, then carefully lifted it off the wall.

An old combination safe was built into the plaster.

It was small, with a carved boat decorating its door.

Mom… what had she been hiding?

My fingers trembled as I tried the combination.

My birthday. Wrong.

Mom’s birthday. Wrong.

The day she died. The day Dad died. The anniversary of our move…

I tried every date I could think of.

The safe wouldn’t budge.

Then a piercing alarm shrieked through the empty house.

I dropped to the floor, half my hope gone.