Chapter 2

The audience and viewers watching the livestream were instantly shocked.

"What? Hasn't the Reynolds family doted on Serena since she was little? She's adopted?"

"Then who's Maren Reynolds?"

"How come I've never heard of her?"

Seeing that he had everyone's attention, Vance explained smugly, "Maren is the Reynolds family's biological daughter. They found her a year ago after discovering she'd been switched at birth. She spent eighteen whole years growing up away from her real family."

When everyone still looked confused, Vance smacked his forehead as if he'd just remembered something. "Oh, right. None of you knew about that."

He glanced toward the Reynolds family.

"They couldn't accept that the daughter they'd raised for eighteen years wasn't biologically theirs, so they kept the whole thing quiet.

"They even deliberately shut out their biological daughter."

Curious gazes darted between Vance and the Reynolds family.

Greyson pointed furiously at Vance onstage. "Stop spreading lies! You don't know anything about our family!"

Vance merely shrugged. "Oh? Then how come you didn't even know Maren had been missing for three months?"

The revelation sent another wave of shock through the crowd.

"What? She's been missing for three months?"

"And the Reynolds family never reported her missing?"

"Could Vance actually be telling the truth? Do they really care that little about their biological daughter?"

But to everyone's surprise, the Reynolds family actually calmed down.

"And here I thought you'd come up with something convincing." Greyson looked at Vance with contempt. "Missing? She wasn't missing."

A trace of hatred entered his eyes. "She left on her own. After everything we did for her, she turned her back on us."

Melanie's eyes reddened. "She grew up away from us and picked up all kinds of bad habits. She refused to listen to us, stayed out all night, and ran around with a bad crowd. We tried to correct her behavior, and she took off without a second thought."

Her voice was weary. "We thought about looking for her, but how were we supposed to find her?"

Grant didn't say a word, but the disappointment in his eyes seemed to confirm everything they had said.

I was already dead. I didn't even have a body anymore, yet somehow, my chest still ached.

My soul hovered above the studio as I watched everything unfold below, a bitter smile tugging at my lips.

When my family first brought me home, I'd thought I was finally going to receive the love I'd been missing for more than a decade.

But the moment I walked through the door, I saw Serena sobbing uncontrollably in Melanie's arms. "Mom, I don't want her to take you away from me."

Melanie stroked her back soothingly. "She won't. She won't. You'll always be my daughter."

Greyson stood nearby, staring coldly at me. "Don't think being related to us by blood gives you the right to bully Serena."

Grant took one look at how timid and uncomfortable I was and merely frowned. "Let her stay here for now. We'll deal with everything else later."

I lived with the Reynolds family for an entire year, and not once did they publicly acknowledge who I really was.

As for Serena, the sweet face she showed everyone was nothing like the person she was behind closed doors. She had her friends corner me at school.

They threw my backpack into a fountain. They stuffed a dead rat into my locker. Eventually, they locked me inside an abandoned equipment room overnight.

When I finally stumbled home the next day, Serena accused me of spending the night out with a bunch of delinquents.

My family made me stay on my knees all night as punishment.

No matter how desperately I tried to explain, they refused to believe me.

And now I was dead, but they still didn't believe it. They would rather believe I'd deliberately run away from home.

By then, the crowd had started condemning me too.

"Of course she's like that. She grew up in the middle of nowhere. No manners at all."

"No wonder the Reynolds family doesn't want to acknowledge her."

"She disappears for three months without so much as a word? What an ungrateful daughter."

Onstage, Vance suddenly clicked his tongue. He tilted his head at the three Reynoldses, looking genuinely puzzled. "Really? That's funny. I remember things happening a little differently."

He leaned forward. "Before Maren died, I showed her mercy and let her call you three times. No one answered the first two calls.

"And the only person who did answer..." Vance smiled at Greyson, whose face had suddenly gone white.

Then he mimicked the pleading voice I'd used when I'd begged for help, "'Greyson, please save me.' But you know what you said?"

His smile widened. "Maren, would you just leave me alone? If you want to die so badly, then go to hell."