I spent my last dollar. Hunger left me dizzy, stars bursting at the edges of my vision.
Outside the door, my landlord screamed for three hundred dollars in back rent, cursing my ancestors going back eighteen generations.
How did I end up here?
I couldn't help asking myself.
Because I lost my value.
To Harold and Margaret Swanson, they no longer needed a counterfeit daughter. To Daniel, I'd lost my worth as a bridge into the Swanson family.
I knelt before Harold and kowtowed.
"Please. Give me a way to live."
He glanced at the blood smeared on the floor, then kicked an employment transfer order toward me with the tip of his shoe.
"Start from the bottom. The Swanson family doesn't keep freeloaders."
I worked like my life depended on it—because it did.
When everyone else turned up their noses at difficult clients, I drank until my stomach bled. I didn't hesitate to kneel and kowtow. One outstanding performance at a time, I clawed my way up inch by inch.
Finally, I earned Harold's smile.
"Alex, you didn't let Dad down. Work hard—close a few more big deals, and I'll apply for a Star Path badge for you. Put it on, and you'll be a real member of the Swanson family."
Hope flickered to life. Faint, but real.
Until Stella blinked those innocent eyes and announced she wanted to join the company.
Harold hesitated.
She put on a timid look. "I know I'm not worthy, but I really envy my sister. If I'd grown up at home, I definitely could have been as amazing as her."
Guilt flooded Harold's face. He patted her head.
Then he pinned that badge—the one I'd treated as sacred—onto Stella's chest.
It became a pretty piece of jewelry, dangling at the hem of her skirt.
That night, I drank myself into oblivion, hoping to die in my dreams.
In my dreams, I was still the Swanson heiress. I had parents who loved me. A childhood sweetheart who protected me.
The next morning, silver shackles snapped around my wrists.
"This is your car, right? Drunk driving, hit-and-run, fatal."
The moment I was thrown out of Swanson Mansion, everything under my name had been transferred to Stella.
Including this car.
I stared at her.
It was her!
"The one who killed that person was Stella Swan—"
A slap cracked across my face, shoving my words back down my throat.
I clutched my cheek. Blood pooled under my tongue.
Harold's expression twisted into something I'd never seen before. Pure ferocity.
"Lin Wanxing."
He used the name I had before I came to the Swanson family.
"Remember this: without the Swanson family, you are nothing. Orphanage leftovers. A spot on an assembly line. That was the life you were meant to have. These sixteen years of luxury? That's your debt to repay—principal and interest included."
I stared at him. Every drop of blood in my veins turned to ice.
Margaret clutched Stella tight, as if she were something fragile and precious.
My gaze swept past her and landed on Daniel.
"Do you think so too?"
His face contorted with difficulty. "Stella isn't like you. She's suffered so much these years. She's not as strong as you are."
He swallowed. "This concerns the Swansons' reputation. It'll affect the James family too. We have to put the bigger picture first."
Watching my face drain of color, he scrambled to soften the blow. "Don't worry—I'll hire the best lawyer, pay the highest compensation. It's just a formality. Suspended sentence at most. I absolutely won't let you go to prison."
I stole her life?
So I have to give up my freedom, my love, my future to make it up to her?
In your dreams.
"I want Jade Pruitt to have full authority over this case. I only trust her."
She was my best friend—and Metro City's top lawyer.
