Chapter 12
The first thing I did with that money was hire a lawyer. I gathered evidence and prepared documents.
There was no way I was letting Fiona get away with pushing me off the hospital building.
At the time, she had been careful, making it look like she was only trying to hold me back. The people standing nearby thought I had jumped on my own. But a security camera further away had caught everything–her fake reach, her calculated shove.
That day, she cornered me when no one else was around.
Her eyes burned with hatred. “Jolene, this is all your fault. If it weren’t for you, Dad and Mom wouldn’t have abandoned me. I wouldn’t have ended up with that abusive gambling addict of a father.”
I let out a short laugh. “You got too comfortable in a nest that was never yours. Now you can’t handle the fall.”
She faltered for a second, then sneered.
And then, suddenly, she screamed, “Jolene, don’t hit me! I know I was wrong!”
Heads turned. People gathered.
Her expression shifted in an instant, the venom gone, replaced by wide, tear–filled eyes. “Jolene, I know I wronged you,” she said, her voice trembling, “but when I was switched into your family, I was just a baby. I had no choice. Why are you leading the school to bully me?“.
First, she painted herself as the innocent victim.
Then, she framed me as the perpetrator.
When she reached out, her sleeve slipped back, revealing bruises.
Gasps rippled through the crowd. The whispers started.
People looked at her with sympathy, at me with doubt.
At sixteen, she already knew how to.
daughter, after all.
play people like a game of chess. No surprise–she was homewrecker’s
I pulled out my phone and pressed play.
The recording of her own words rang out for everyone to hear.
Her face paled.
The crowd’s murmurs shifted.
I smiled.
d
“First of all,” I said, “the daughter of a homewrecker has no right to play the victim. I didn’t beat you, so it’s none of my business.”
