Chapter five

“You heard me.” Her eyes were ice. “Apologize to her now.”

“For what?” I looked at Cassia. She stood between my parents with her head down, looking small and fragile, the perfect victim. “For asking why she’s in your house? For asking why she’s—”

“For everything,” my father cut in, his voice dripping with disgust. “For trying to kill her, for stealing her life, for—”

“I didn’t try to kill her!” The scream tore out of me. “I’ve been telling you this for three years! I didn’t push her! She fell! It was an accident!”

“Liar,” my mother hissed.

“I’m not lying!” Desperation clawed at my throat. “I have evidence! The investigator found proof! If you’d just listen—”

“We don’t want to hear your excuses.” My father’s expression was stone. “We’ve heard enough lies.”

I looked at Cassia, begged her with my eyes to tell the truth.

But she just stood there with tears streaming down her perfect face, playing her part.

“Please,” I whispered. “Please just listen to me. Cassia is lying, she’s been lying this whole time, she’s manipulating you, she’s—”

“Enough!” my mother shouted. “We know the truth, Brynn. We know everything.”

“What truth? What are you—”

“Your marriage,” my father said. “We saw the interview, saw Darius propose to Cassia on live television.”

Oh god. They’d seen.

“That’s why I’m here,” I said desperately. “I need help, I need—”

“You need to face the consequences of your actions,” my mother interrupted. “You trapped that man in a loveless marriage, you manipulated him when he was grieving. And now that his true love is back, you can’t stand it.”

“That’s not true! None of that is true!”

“Everyone saw it,” my father said. “The whole world saw how much Darius loves Cassia, how he wants to marry her, how you were just in the way.”

Each word was a knife.

“You deserve this,” my mother added, her voice cold, so cold. “You deserve everything bad that’s happening to you.”

I stared at her, at this woman who’d raised me, who I’d called mother for twenty-five years.

“How can you say that?” My voice broke. “I’m your daughter—”

“Stop calling yourself that!” she screamed.

The words hung in the air like poison.

I looked between them and saw something in their expressions, something beyond anger.

“What’s going on?” I asked slowly. “Why are you acting like this?”

My parents looked at each other, some silent communication passing between them.

Then my mother turned back to me, her expression hard.

“You want to know why Cassia is here?” she asked. “Why we’re protecting her instead of you?”

I nodded, my throat too tight to speak.

“Because,” my mother said, each word deliberate, “Cassia is our real daughter.”

“What?”

“You heard me.” She crossed her arms. “Cassia is our biological daughter, not you.”

This wasn’t real, this couldn’t be real.

“That’s…” I shook my head. “That’s not funny—”

“Do we look like we’re joking?” my father asked.

I stared at them, at their serious expressions, at Cassia standing between them, watching me with those cold, calculating eyes.

“You’re lying,” I whispered.

“We’re not,” my mother said. “Twenty-five years ago, you were switched at birth. The people who raised Cassia took our real daughter and gave us you.”

No.

This couldn’t be happening.

“That’s impossible—”

“We had DNA tests done,” my father said. “After Cassia came back to us, after we started suspecting. The results confirmed it. Cassia is our daughter, you’re not.”

The ground was falling away beneath my feet.

“You’re lying,” I said again, but my voice was weak, uncertain.

“Why would we lie?” my mother asked. “Look at her, Brynn, really look at her.”

Against my will, my eyes went to Cassia.

She looked like them.

God, how had I never noticed?

She had my mother’s eyes, my father’s smile, the same bone structure.

“Our real daughter suffered for years,” my mother continued, her voice shaking with rage. “Living in poverty while you had everything, everything that should have been hers.”

“I didn’t know,” I whispered. “I swear I didn’t—”

“That doesn’t matter!” my father shouted. “You lived the life that was meant for Cassia! You had the money, the education, the opportunities. All of it should have been hers!”

“That’s why you tried to kill her three years ago,” my mother added, her eyes burning into mine. “You found out somehow, found out she was our real daughter. And you tried to get rid of her, tried to keep everything for yourself.”

“No!” The word tore out of me. “No, I didn’t know! I swear I didn’t know anything!”

“Liar!” my mother screamed.

“Cassia,” I turned to her desperately. “Tell them, tell them what really happened, tell them I didn’t know—”

But Cassia just looked down, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs.

Playing her part perfectly.

My parents moved to comfort her, their real daughter.

While I stood alone on the doorstep, my world crumbling around me.

“You need to leave,” my father said without even looking at me. “Now.”

“But—”

“This was never your home,” she said coldly. “It was always meant for Cassia.”

My father disappeared inside for a moment. When he returned, he held a thick folder.

“Before you go,” he said, shoving it at me.

I took it with numb fingers. Inside were documents, my inheritance, everything they’d promised to leave me.

“Sign it,” my father ordered. “All of it, transfer everything to Cassia.”

I stared at the papers, at my entire future being stripped away.

“You can’t be serious—”

“Sign it,” my mother demanded. “Everything you have should have been hers anyway. You don’t deserve any of it.”

“Sign it,” my father repeated. “Or we’ll make sure you have nothing left, not even your dignity.”

What dignity? I wanted to laugh. I had none left.

Cassia watched me from between my parents, her expression carefully neutral.

But her eyes were triumphant, she knew She’d won.

She took Darius, my parents, and now my inheritance.

With shaking hands, I signed the documents.

“Get out,” he said. “And don’t come back.”

“I have nowhere to go—”

“That’s not our problem,” my mother said. “You’re not our daughter, you’re nothing to us.”

Cassia watched silently as they led her inside, into my childhood home.

The door slammed in my face.

I walked to my car in a daze, got in, started the engine.

I had to go home, had to get that evidence. It was all I had left, the only thing that could save me.

I drove on autopilot, barely seeing the road.

When I pulled into the driveway, the house was dark and empty.

I stumbled inside, heading straight for where the mail was left.

There, an envelope from the investigator.

My hands trembled as I picked it up.

This was it.

The proof that would clear my name, show the truth, change everything.

I was about to open it when I heard it.

The front door, footsteps.

I looked up.

Darius stood in the doorway, his eyes fixed on me, on the envelope in my hands.