Chapter 3

The day after we buried my dad according to custom, I thanked the relatives and neighbors of Maplewood Village who had come to help.

When the last person left, the mansion went quiet. The silence crushed me so hard I almost wished I had gone with him.

Vivian—my mother—had run off with an out-of-town butcher when I was two or three, abandoning my dad because he was “too poor.”

From then on, my dad became both mother and father, working himself to the bone to raise me.

When I entered elementary school and didn’t need constant care, he finally had time to start a small business. I never knew how large it had grown, only that life kept getting better.

He built this mansion. He spoiled me with everything I pointed at. At school, I became the girl everyone envied—the rich kid with the perfect life.

But no one saw the part of me that was hollow.

The part that should’ve been my mother.

She was never there for any milestone, any nightmare, any moment I needed her.

Eventually, I learned how to be the kid without a mom.

I sorted through my dad’s belongings day after day, crying until I collapsed, waking up, and crying again. Time blurred until I finally finished organizing everything he left behind—and discovered he had been far wealthier than I ever imagined.

Around that time, I picked up a habit: sitting in the courtyard, staring at the security camera on the wall, letting my thoughts drift.

One evening, while the sky blazed with a beautiful dusk, I sipped the osmanthus wine my dad had brewed. The weather was perfect. I hadn’t even locked the front door.

That was when Vivian walked in with Brandon and Kendra, standing at the entrance like they owned the place.

“It’s been days. You should’ve gone through your old man’s things by now,” she said.

“I brought Brandon and Kendra. We need to divide your dad’s estate.”