Chapter 2

I closed my eyes, giving up on fighting back.

'Father, I got you the evidence.

'I won't be a blemish in your life anymore.'

Suddenly, I felt light and found myself floating in the air.

As I looked down, I saw my own flesh beaten to a pulp.

The girl named Lisa James was dead, her face smashed in, while not a single part of her was left intact.

Meanwhile, the thugs left, cursing as they found nothing on my remains.

I wanted to cry, but the ghost had no tears.

Suddenly, I was pulled by a mysterious force and found myself at the grandest restaurant downtown.

The lights inside were bright and warm, and Gus was in his casuals and wearing a tender smile I'd never seen before on his face.

As he placed a crystal tiara on Nana's head, he said, "Happy birthday. Congratulations on turning eighteen."

Dressed dazzlingly in a white gown, Nana was smiling blissfully as she hugged his neck. "Thanks, Dad! You're the best!"

Gus tapped her nose lovingly. "You're a big girl now. Be more mature and… don't behave like a delinquent."

I know he wanted to say 'don't behave like Lisa', treating me like a cautionary tale even when I wasn't around to meddle with their blissful moment together.

There was a three-tiered cake on the table with the words 'Happy birthday to my beloved daughter Nana'.

Beloved daughter…

I was Gus' biological daughter, but he had never once celebrated my birthday.

He always said he was busy and had no time to go through the motions with me.

On the other hand, he had never missed any of Nana's birthdays since she came to us five years ago.

I floated beside Gus, watching as he cut a cake and peeled the shell off shrimp for Nana.

That was when his phone chimed as he received my text.

He held it up and frowned before snorting and slamming it loudly on the table.

"What's wrong?" Nana asked.

"Nothing. Just spam," Gus replied flatly.

Even my ghost cringed.

It was my final message—evidence that would help him secure a major achievement but dismissed as spam for him.

Nana smiled sweetly as she served him some lamb shank. "Calm down, Dad. Lisa just wants you to care."

Gus frowned even more. "That one? I'd be retiring if she were half the daughter you are. She's always running off, getting tattoos and into fights—what an embarrassment. And just now, she's trying to trick me by saying she's dying. I'm just so sick of her games, even if she isn't."

I saw the look of disgust on his face, but somehow, my heart didn't hurt.

After all, I was already dead, and the dead wouldn't feel heartache.

Still, I found it amusing.

If he hated me so much, then why didn't he simply strangle me to death at birth?

But he insisted on raising me to humiliate him.

Soon, I watched as Gus fed Nana and was reminded of that time I was seven and had a high fever.

He was busy with a case and bellowed on the phone, "Don't you have hands?! Can't you cook something for yourself?"

My head was muddled from the fever, and I was too short to reach above the kitchen counter.

Standing on a stool to cook, I ended up knocking over a pot of boiling water, which burned off an entire layer of my skin.

When Gus returned, he frowned and threw me a tube of ointment, snapping, "You're so clumsy. Can't even do that much?"

But now, he even carefully blew on spaghetti so it wouldn't be too hot for Nana.

As it turned out, he wasn't a bad father—he just didn't want to be a father to me.

After dinner, Gus took Nana home to the house where I lived like an outsider for eighteen years.

Stepping through the front door, they saw my mother, Wanda Locke, pacing around in the living room.