Something flickered behind his eyes, like a thought catching up to him. Then came the disappointment, cold and total. He didn't look at me again.
My mother had believed the Hardings came for her out of love. Out of blood.
She was naive. I wasn't.
A family like the Hardings ran full medical panels every year.
How could they possibly go thirty-eight years without discovering the daughter raised under their roof wasn't theirs?
They'd lost her for thirty-eight years and never once came looking.
When they finally did, there had to be a reason they didn't want anyone to know.
My gaze settled on the sickly girl. Cold. Assessing.
She was the reason.
Lindsay helped Caroline to her feet, the older woman still whimpering in agony.
Then Lindsay dropped to her knees in front of Max, tears streaming down her face like rain on cherry blossoms:
"Grandpa, she just lost her mother. She's hurting. She wants someone to take it out on, and that's understandable. Please don't blame her!"
"After all, Mom and I are the ones who took her mother's and her aunt's place all these years. We deserve this."
"Please don't hit her. If you have to hit someone, hit me!"
"Just please, don't make yourself sick over this!"
While she spoke, she gave Caroline's sleeve a subtle tug.
Caroline caught the signal, shot me one last venomous glare, then gritted her teeth and joined in begging for mercy on my behalf.
She even slipped in, between the lines, that the recording I'd played was fabricated. That I'd framed her.
Max swallowed every word. He rushed to pull Lindsay up, his face crumpling with tenderness:
"You sweet girl. Always too kind for your own good, begging for someone like her."
"Grandpa would never lay a hand on you!"
"Your kidneys are weak. You should be resting, not coming downstairs."
I caught the key phrase: kidneys are weak.
Everything clicked into place.
My mother's kidneys hadn't been a match. So she died.
Mine were. So they brought me here.
Max waved his hand, signaling the bodyguards to seize me:
"Grab this feral animal and hold her down! She's going to kneel before the young miss and bow until her forehead bleeds!"
"Then throw her in the basement. No food. Let her think about what she's done!"
At his command, the bodyguards cracked their knuckles and lunged.
I rolled my neck. Every cell in my body was screaming with anticipation.
What they didn't know was that I'd been diagnosed with a severe psychiatric condition. Antisocial personality disorder, compounded by violent tendencies.
Without my mother nagging me to behave, I didn't have to hold back anymore.
It was over fast. The smugness drained from their faces, replaced by disbelief, then horror.
The bodyguards lay crumpled on the floor with broken hands and shattered legs, sobbing and howling.
I'd taken hits too, but I couldn't feel a thing.
I licked the blood from the corner of my mouth, grabbed Caroline by the hair with one hand and closed the other around Lindsay's throat.
One kick sent them both crashing to their knees in front of me. I shoved their heads down, forcing them to kowtow over and over.
Anyone who made a sound got slapped.
Max's lips turned purple. He clutched his chest, his heart condition flaring.
Madeline's face twisted with anguish. She raised her cane and swung it at me.
"Stop it! Stop it this instant!"
"The apple doesn't fall far from the tree! You're as vicious as your mother. You dare lay hands on my precious daughter and granddaughter right in front of me!"
"I'll do what your mother should have done and beat some sense into you, you wild little wretch!"
I snatched the cane out of the air an inch before it cracked my skull. Madeline lost her balance and collapsed onto the floor.
I turned the cane around and brought it down hard across Caroline's back.
The bruise it left was identical to the marks on my mother's corpse.
I scoffed, then pressed the tip of the cane against Madeline's sternum, looming over her:
"You miserable old hag."
"When my mother came back, is this the same cane you used to 'teach her a lesson'?"
Madeline froze. Something complicated passed across her face:
"Your mother was vicious. She picked up all sorts of filthy habits out there, and the moment she came home she started bullying Caroline and Lindsay."
