Chapter 2

After the bracelet incident, Dad grounded Xena.

She might’ve been stuck in her room, but that didn’t stop her from stirring up trouble.

Fiona became her favorite weapon. She was convinced I was the scheming biological daughter who’d come back just to steal Xena’s place and make her miserable.

That morning, she had the chef dump three extra spoonfuls of ghost pepper oil into my food.

I ate every bite, tears streaming down my face from the heat, then calmly added another charge to my price list.

“Tampering with my food. Forty thousand.”

That night, she hung a creepy picture of the girl from “The Ring” above my bed, hoping I’d wake up screaming.

I studied the curtain of black hair covering the woman’s face and gave my sincere opinion.

“Great hair. Definitely thicker than Ethan’s.”

Then I added another entry.

“Trying to scare me in the middle of the night. Sixty thousand.”

On the third day, Fiona started stuffing fake cockroaches into my slippers.

I stepped on one and flattened it.

“Plastic. Not scary at all. I can only charge you twenty thousand for this one.”

After a few days of this, Fiona was getting closer and closer to losing it.

Meanwhile, my bank account was getting healthier by the day.

Ethan gave me a cold look.

“Dolly, you’re so obsessed with money, I swear you’d happily drown in a pile of cash.

“Xena’s already being punished, and she still wants to apologize to you. All you know how to do is squeeze money out of people. You’ll never measure up to her.”

I nodded eagerly.

“Thanks for the blessing. Drowning in cash sounds perfect.”

Before long, the day of my welcome-home party arrived.

Xena was finally allowed out of her room. She appeared in a white dress, her eyes still red.

Fiona immediately rushed over to her.

“Xena, don’t be scared. I won’t let her bully you.”

I shook my head.

Poor idiot.

She was the kind of idiot who’d get played and still thank the person playing her.

Halfway through the party, Fiona suddenly disappeared.

I hadn’t planned on looking for her until the tiny tracker tucked inside my sleeve started buzzing.

I’d slipped it into her phone case earlier when she tried to trip me.

Fiona could keep causing trouble all she wanted. As long as she kept making me money, I wasn’t letting anything happen to her.

I followed the signal to a penthouse suite on the top floor of the hotel.

The moment I opened the door, the smell of alcohol hit me.

Fiona was slumped beside the bed, her face flushed, while an older man reached for the hem of her dress.

I grabbed a vase and smashed it over him.

He clutched his head and screamed.

Fiona’s eyes fluttered open. The moment she saw me, tears spilled down her cheeks.

“Help... Help me...”

I wrapped my jacket around her and had just helped her to her feet when Xena’s voice came from the doorway.

“Dolly, I know Fiona hasn’t exactly been nice to you, but how could you hand her over to some man?”

Mom, Dad, and Ethan came rushing over when they heard the commotion.

Xena immediately put on her innocent, wounded expression.

“I saw Dolly sneaking upstairs, and I was worried something might happen to her, so I followed her. I never imagined I’d find this.”

Ethan’s expression darkened.

“You monster! You’d even do this to Fiona?”

Mom was shaking with rage.

“Dolly, you’ve only been home a few days, and you’ve already turned this entire family upside down!

“No matter how much Fiona has fought with you, she’s still your biological sister. How could you do something this disgusting and ruin her life?”

I smiled.

Oh, I knew this storyline.

I’d seen it a million times.

I didn’t bother explaining. I simply looked up at the security camera in the hallway and waved.

“All right, security camera. Do your thing.”

The hotel manager quickly pulled up the surveillance footage.

The footage clearly showed Xena handing Fiona a glass of juice.

Not long afterward, Fiona could barely stay on her feet.

Xena then had a hotel employee help her into the suite.

As for the older man inside, he was a business associate Xena had contacted ahead of time.

Mr. Zimmer tested the residue left in the glass, then said coldly, “The juice was spiked with a powerful sedative.”

The entire room went dead silent.

Fiona stormed over and slapped Xena hard across the face.

“I treated you like my own sister! It wasn’t enough to use me to do your dirty work? You were actually going to ruin my life too?”

Xena shook her head, sobbing.

“Fiona, I was just so scared of losing all of you.”

“Shut up! I’m never trusting you again!”

Pleased with how things had turned out, I opened my price list and looked at Mom and Dad. Both of them had gone pale.

“Hmm. Using your own sister as a pawn and then trying to frame me for the whole thing. I don’t have a price for that one.”

I smiled sweetly.

“So what’ll it be this time? A house or a car?”