Chapter 5 of My Husband and Sister Stole My Life,So I Stole It Back

I stared at Leonora, cold, and stepped back on instinct.

She smiled.

"What's with the look, sis?"

"Relax. It's exam day—I'm not going to mess with you the way I used to."

"That can wait until after."

Leonora let the words hang like a gift, then turned on her heel and walked away. I narrowed my eyes at her retreating back.

This time, I finally made it into the math exam hall.

The room was dead silent.

I sat at my desk, and the sunlight through the window hit so hard it stung—I had to blink the tears back before they could start.

The math papers were handed out.

Every problem I never got to answer in my last life stared back at me now like an old friend.

Derivatives, conic sections, probability and statistics—all of them, right there.

I could have done them with my eyes closed. In another life, I'd sat up through countless midnights with the answer keys to these exact questions, crying over them until the print blurred, reading them again until I cried again.

I picked up my pen and started writing, steady, deliberate, one answer at a time.

I was deep in concentration when hurried footsteps broke through from outside.

A female proctor walked up to my desk, her expression severe, and stopped.

"Dora Sullivan. Put your pen down. Someone has reported that you brought cheat notes into the exam."

I froze, looking up in confusion.

"Ma'am, I didn't."

"We were all searched before we came in, weren't we?"

Leonora's voice cut in from the back row, bright with a triumph she wasn't even trying to hide.

"Ma'am, I saw it with my own eyes. She stuffed a slip of paper in her pocket. The right pocket of her school uniform."

I turned and looked at her.

The look on her face said everything it needed to.

*Go ahead, Dora Sullivan. Talk your way out of this one. Cheat notes in the exam hall—doesn't matter if you used them or not, you're done. Zero on every section. Daddy's favor, the inheritance, the oceanfront villa—gone.*

I pressed my lips tight and looked away.

"Dora Sullivan, please stand up."

The proctor stepped in front of me, her tone brooking no argument. "Per regulations, we need to conduct a search."

I stood and turned my pockets inside out for her, one by one.

Left pocket. Empty.

Right pocket—

Leonora's gaze locked onto it, and the curve of her smile climbed higher and higher.

I spoke up. "Ma'am, before the search, can I say one thing?"

"Go ahead."

"There are cameras in this room."

I raised my head and pointed to the corner of the classroom, then to the surveillance camera in the hallway outside.

"If anything is found on me that shouldn't be there, I'll accept every consequence. But if nothing is found—"