My Husband and Sister Stole My Life,So I Stole It Back

A car accident on the morning of the college entrance exam. I missed an entire subject.

I should have scored above 680. I got 530—barely enough for an ordinary university.

I married my first love, Landon Henson. Had a child. Ten years of what I thought was a good life.

Until I brought my five-year-old son to a party.

And found my husband with a girl pinned against a wall, his face buried against her neck.

She tilted her face up. "Landon, who do you actually love? Me, or your wife?"

He kissed her forehead, that besotted look never leaving his eyes.

"You, of course. Why do you think I set up that car accident ten years ago so Dora Sullivan would miss the exam?"

"I only married her so you could land the Gilbert heir. Otherwise I wouldn't have touched her."

——

He said it so casually, like breathing. My whole body went cold.

The accident on exam day.

Landon had arranged it.

My fists clenched until my nails broke skin. The girl in front of me was no stranger. She was my half-sister, Leonora Pruitt.

The year of the exam, because my score fell short of Leonora's, I lost the right to inherit our father's assets.

She'd scored 535, five points above mine, and walked away with an oceanfront villa and a private island, both gifts from our father.

And because I lost that bet,

our father threw me out of the house.

Cut my mother and me off without a cent.

For years I'd wondered. Why then? No accidents any other day of my life, but on the morning of the exam, a collision out of nowhere.

I'd even blamed my own bad luck.

All of it. Every last bit of it. Landon's doing.

"Mommy…"

My five-year-old son, Ryan Abbott, tore his hand free from mine and ran toward Leonora, his face lit up with excitement.

The commotion drew their attention.

Leonora eased Landon aside, unhurried, and tilted her head at me. "Well. What a coincidence, sis."

Landon's body locked. He spun around.

He saw me.

Shock first, then panic, then something I couldn't read at all.

"Dora."

He started toward me. "How much did you hear?"

I didn't look at him. I just wanted to take Ryan and go.

But the next second.

Ryan ran straight to Leonora and wrapped his arms around her leg. "Mommy, hold me…"

His voice was small, but it hit my skull like a nail hammered in.

I couldn't move.

Five years old. I'd raised him with my own hands, held him every night and told him stories—and now that same little boy was clinging to Leonora's leg, face upturned, eager to please, calling her—

Mommy.

Leonora looked down and stroked Ryan's hair, her smile impossibly tender. Then she raised her eyes to mine, and the triumph in them didn't even try to hide.

"There's my good boy."

Her voice was soft. She glanced at Landon. "Mommy was just talking to Daddy, sweetie. You couldn't wait for Mommy to pick you up, could you?"

The color drained from Landon's face.

He crossed the room in two strides and pulled Ryan away from her.

"Ryan, you got it wrong. That's your aunt."

"But Auntie told me to call her that."

Ryan blinked, all innocence. "Auntie said she's my real mommy. She bought me tons and tons of toys and said if I called her Mommy, I'd never have to go back to that stupid house."

The blood in my veins ran backward.

"Landon."

I heard my own voice—hoarse, barely mine. "You've been taking Ryan to see her?"

Landon swallowed. He said nothing.