Chapter 7 - Charlie (Part 1)

Even after the third pinch of her own cheek and washing her face a second time with ice water, Charlie still couldn't convince herself that she wasn't delusional.

Staring at her pale and shocked reflection in the half bath where she had fled at the first opportunity he got, Charlie replayed in her mind all the unbelievable things that had happened in the last hour. It was true that she didn't care how little her father had left her in the inheritance, however unfair the division. However, when that idiot lawyer had told her that she couldn't get her hands on anything until she was 21 and that she would have to be at Samantha's mercy for an entire month, Charlie believed she was trapped in a nightmare. Her freedom seemed so close, and suddenly, she had completely disintegrated. The shock and despair were so intense that she was barely able to formulate an argument that made sense as she stammered pathetically at all those people who only wanted to harm her.

That was when, out of the b