Chapter 1

A few days before the SATs, everyone else was cramming like their lives depended on it.

Sasha Lane got called in with a guardian instead.

The reason?

Her diary had been dug out by a classmate.

The one filled with everything she felt for Gabriel Quinn.

In it, she called him Uncle Gabriel, the man who had raised her.

The boy reading it out loud dragged every word into the open, his tone mocking, exaggerated.

“I got kicked out by my aunt again. It was pouring, and I curled up in a corner, wishing I could go find my mom and dad in heaven. Then Uncle Gabriel showed up. He was wearing a crisp white shirt, holding a big umbrella over my head. He reached out his hand and said he’d take me home.

“When I first moved into the Quinn house, I was terrified. I couldn’t sleep at night. He gave me a stuffed bunny to hold, told me stories until I fell asleep.

“On my birthday, he gave me a beautiful white grand piano. We sat side by side and played together. When I looked up, he was smiling at me.

“I keep telling myself it’s just attachment. But I can’t stop myself from liking him. Uncle Gabriel… I like you.”

The boy dragged out the last line in a falsetto, turning her quiet, hidden feelings into a spectacle.

Laughter exploded around the room.

Shame burned through her. Rage followed right behind it. The humiliation felt endless, tearing her apart piece by piece.

“Give it back…” Her voice trembled as she jumped, trying to grab the notebook.

The boy twisted away, then mimicked her again in an even higher voice.

“Uncle Gabriel, I like you!”

More laughter.

Someone clapped, “She’s a jinx. A curse on her whole family. Shameless little slut.”

“Freak. Slut. Total disgrace!”

The notebook passed from hand to hand. The insults escalated, dragging her dead parents into it.

Something snapped.

Her vision went red.

Sasha grabbed a chair and swung it hard.

…

When the man in the white shirt walked in, the whole office seemed to brighten.

He looked clean, composed, untouchable.

The teacher who had been scolding Sasha instantly changed her tone. “And you are…?”

“Gabriel Quinn.” His gaze flicked to Sasha, her hair a mess. “Her guardian.”

The teacher fell silent.

Suddenly, it all made sense.

Sasha didn’t dare look at him. She stared at her toes, fingers clenched tight, her chest twisted into knots.

About half an hour later, he led her out to the car.

The enclosed space was filled with his familiar scent.

Before, it had always made her feel safe.

Now it only made her uneasy.

Terrified that he’d hate her from now on.

After a long silence, she finally worked up the courage to look at his tense profile.

“Uncle…”

He lifted a hand and cut her off. Then he lit a cigarette.

Smoke curled between them, blurring his expression.

She bit her lip, her chest aching with the pressure building inside.

Only after he finished the cigarette did he speak.

“You’re not taking the SATs. I’ll arrange a school overseas. You’ll leave the country.”

His words hit like a bomb.

“No. I want to take the test. I want to get into Huxley University. Pharmaceutical science…”

“There are good schools abroad too. Study there for a few years, then come back and go into civil service. I’ll get you a comfortable position.”

The Quinn family had been in politics for generations.

Gabriel was the best of his generation. Still young, already working in a powerful government office.

As she heard how calm and distant he sounded, her lips trembled. Tears spilled over.

She was only a teenage girl, just starting to understand what it meant to like someone.

She didn’t understand why she wasn’t allowed to like him.

They weren’t even related by blood.

She didn’t understand why one confession meant he would punish her like this. Make her give up the most important test in her life.

Sasha had never felt safe growing up.

Her mother died when she was seven.

Three years later, her father, a police officer, died saving two college students from drowning at sea.

Their relatives fought viciously over the compensation money.

Her aunt got the money. But she didn’t want Sasha.

She starved her, hit her, even locked her out of the house in the rain.

One of the students her father had saved was Gabriel.

He took Sasha in.

When she first arrived, she was like a stray kitten that had been abused too many times. Skittish. Afraid of everything.

He was the one who brought her back to life.

The only person she had.

And now…

Even he was giving up on her.

“Uncle, I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. Please let me take the test. I won’t apply to Huxley. I can go somewhere else. Anywhere.”

Her face was streaked with tears, smudged and messy.

Looking at her like that, Gabriel softened.

He had raised her himself.

Like a rose he had grown with his own hands.

How could he bear to watch her wither?

Still, he couldn’t just let this go.

He had to scare her. Make sure she gave up those inappropriate feelings for good.

He took her ID and test permit, planning to return them the night before.

As for whether that would throw her off for the exam?

In his eyes, she’d already been given a head start most people could only dream of.

He locked her in her room.

Ignored her.

Didn’t answer her calls.

By the night before the test, Sasha was on the verge of losing her mind.

She had spent three years working herself to the bone. Early mornings, late nights.

Her fingers were covered in calluses from writing.

The stack of practice papers she had finished could reach several feet high.

For her, this test wasn’t just about the future.

It was everything.

And she was supposed to just give it up?

She couldn’t accept that.

That night, the Quinn house was silent.

The whole family had gone out to a formal event.

Sasha slipped out of her room and went straight to Gabriel’s.

She searched everywhere.

Nothing.

No ID. No test permit.

Despair hit her hard.

For a moment, she even thought about calling the police.

But what if it blew up? What if it embarrassed the Quinn family?

What if Gabriel never forgave her?

She was still torn when her phone rang.

It was her best friend, Chloe Quinn.

A distant relative in the family. She also called him Uncle Gabriel.

The only friend Sasha had made since coming here.

“Sasha, hurry. Get over here. Uncle Gabriel’s drunk. I saw your test ticket in his coat pocket.”

…

Sasha made her way to the hotel and found Chloe first.

The two girls huddled in a corner, whispering back and forth. Chloe handed her a glass of fruit wine.

“You’ve got this, Sasha. I’ll see you at the test center tomorrow. You’re definitely getting into Huxley’s pharmaceutical sciences program. One day, you’re going to develop a drug for Alzheimer’s and help people like your mom get their lives back.”

Sasha nodded hard.

Her mother had been diagnosed with the disease before she was even forty.

One day, while picking Sasha up from school, she wandered straight into traffic.

Sasha had watched with her own eyes as her mother was hit, thrown through the air, and left in a mangled heap on the ground.

That night, standing in front of her mother’s memorial photo, Sasha had sworn an oath.

When she grew up, she would develop a cure for this disease.

She would make sure other children didn’t have to lose their mothers the way she had.

This had never been a dream.

It was an obsession.

She tipped back her head and finished the fruit wine in one gulp. Then, clutching the keycard Chloe had gotten for her, she swiped open the door to room 3206.

Out in the dim hallway behind her, Chloe pulled out her phone and sent a message.

The screen lit up, then went dark again under the hotel’s low amber lights.

At that moment, Sasha had no idea that everything that happened that night would become her nightmare.

It was also the beginning of her exile overseas.