Chapter 14
My sister stepped inside slowly, leaning on our mother’s arm.
She was still pale and thin, still fragile from everything she had endured, but when Mrs. Clarke saw her face, she broke.
They looked so much alike it was almost unbearable.
Mrs. Clarke rushed forward with tears already spilling down her cheeks. Mr. Clarke stood frozen, as if the world had stopped moving and he no longer trusted himself to breathe.
Another test confirmed it.
Amelia Reed—my little sister, the girl my mother had found as a child and raised through poverty and cruelty and hunger—was their biological daughter.
Years ago, while my mother still lived in the mountains, she had taken in an abandoned child because she could not bear to leave a baby to die. She had protected that child even when it cost her dearly.
And Vivian?
Vivian had seen enough over time to suspect the truth herself. Amelia’s face had begun to resemble Mrs. Clarke too closely. Terrified of losing everything, she chose to strike first and destroy the one person who could expose her.
Now the Clarkes held their real daughter in their arms, crying over years they would never get back.
I stepped away from them and turned toward Vivian and Lucas.
They looked ashen.
Now it was their turn.
“Vivian,” I said, “I won’t kill you quickly. That would be kindness. You will spend your life trapped in the kind of fear and disgrace you once handed out so casually.”
Then I looked at Lucas.
“You will lose everything that made you arrogant. Your money. Your power. Your protection. You will become the kind of man you used to look down on and discover how cold the world feels without a name behind you.”
Finally, I lifted my gaze to everyone in that room who had laughed, watched, helped, obeyed, or stayed silent.
“Anyone who harmed my sister,” I said, “will receive back double what they gave.”
The room spun.
The lights blurred.
And then darkness swallowed me whole.