Chapter 3

The moment she finished speaking, Heidi burst into tears once again.

I stared at her, bewildered by how fast she could change her face, as if flipping a switch. Before I could even process it, she had already dashed behind me and collapsed dramatically into the arms of the man standing there.

"Cassian," she sobbed pitifully, clutching his shirt, "I was just making soup for you, but Zora suddenly stormed in and threw her tablet into the pot! Then she slapped me!"

Tears streamed down her cheeks as she hiccupped, "Cassian, why did she do that?"

My eyes widened in disbelief. How could she lie so shamelessly without even blinking?

Cassian glanced down at her tear-streaked face, his gaze lingering on the faint but unmistakable red imprint of fingers. His expression darkened. Without a moment's hesitation, he strode toward me, rage flashing in his eyes.

And then—smack!—his palm collided brutally with my face.

"You're unbelievable!" he roared. "What scheme are you trying to pull this time? Who are you trying to frame now?"

His voice grew harsher, more cutting with every word. "I've raised you for ten years—not to become someone so vicious and shameless!"

The force of his slap made me stagger backward. My vision blurred, and I had to clutch the wall just to steady myself. A sharp, metallic tang filled my mouth as blood welled up between my lips.

"Apologize to Heidi. Now!" he barked, his voice laced with fury.

Slowly, I lifted my head to look at him. "Why should I apologize?"

I wasn't the one lying. She was.

Cassian froze, clearly stunned that the usually obedient, docile me would dare to talk back.

His face twisted into a darker, more sinister expression as he sneered coldly, "Zora, you've gone too far! Have you forgotten who you are? Forgotten where you came from? You're nothing more than a piece of collateral—something your father, Patrick, used to pay off his one-million-dollar debt. That's all.

"I've been kind to you, but don't mistake kindness for indulgence. Don't you dare get ideas above your station!"

A bitter taste filled my heart, even stronger than the blood in my mouth.

Yes. Ten years had passed—and I had almost forgotten the road that brought me here.

I remembered it so clearly now: the day I moved into this house, when he had held my hand in front of all the staff and declared with such conviction, "From today on, Zora is part of this family. If I find out anyone mistreats her, they'll have me to answer to."

He had personally overseen the decorating of my bedroom, helping me pick out every piece, from the curtains to the doorknobs.

He had made sure my clothes, my meals, my daily needs were carefully tailored to my preferences.

And when a servant had secretly bullied me, he hadn't hesitated to punish them ruthlessly.

Back then, what did I mean to him? Maybe nothing more than a stray kitten that a kind-hearted young man in his twenties had decided to rescue on a whim.

But things had changed.

Now he had a new love—a new pet to fawn over. And his beloved Heidi, on her very first day in this house, had smashed the only precious thing my late mother had left me.

My mother had scrimped and saved for that little crystal globe, even choosing it over buying her own medicine, back when we had nothing left. It was the only piece of my old life that I had carried with me when I came here.

And what had Cassian said when I confronted him, desperate and heartbroken?

"Why are you acting like a crazy person over something so trivial? Where are your manners? It's just a crystal ball. Your mother's been dead for over a decade. That thing's worthless. Don't make things difficult for Heidi. If you want, I can buy you ten—hell, I can buy you a hundred."

A hundred new crystal balls.

As if they could ever replace that one.

Looking back now, I realized how foolish I had been.

I should have seen it then. I should have understood that the "Uncle Cassian" I once clung to had become a stranger—a man who no longer saw me as his princess.

I turned my gaze toward the enamel pot, where the boiling soup frothed and churned over the ruins of my tablet.

Everything I had recorded over these years—the fleeting dreams, the secret hopes, the tender memories—were dissolving into that pot of scalding broth, destined to rot away in a heap of scrap metal.