Chapter 3

Alicia didn't say a word, but I caught the flicker of resentment in her eyes.

Alicia looked every bit the helpless, innocent girl—eyes rimmed red, lips trembling in aggrieved silence.

"Mom, Dad… who is she? Why is she calling you Mom and Dad too?"

Just as my parents realized they had overlooked her feelings and turned to comfort her, I stepped in first.

I reached for Alicia's hand, smiling gently.

"You must be the one who's been honoring our parents in my place," I said. "Just as Chester said—you're a thousand times better than I could ever be. Even though your mother switched us at birth and left me by the river to die, I know you have lived here for eighteen years without knowing a thing. You're innocent.

"And Chester warned me that you're the beloved princess of the family, unlike me—someone who never even knew what my parents looked like."

I removed the pendant from around my neck.

"I don't have much to offer," I said, "but this was the keepsake of the person who saved me—the only thing she left me. I hope it keeps you safe and protects you."

Before Alicia could refuse, I placed the pendant firmly in her hand.

Its sharp edges pricked her soft palm. With a shriek, she recoiled, and I let myself stagger backward, collapsing to the floor.

The pendant hit the ground and shattered.

Under my parents' startled gazes, I dropped to my knees and began gathering the shards, hands bleeding, eyes brimming with tears, words tumbling out in apology.

"I'm so sorry! I didn't think this through! No matter how precious it was to me, it's not worthy of someone like you—the heiress of the Rodney family."

My parents rushed to lift me up, voices thick with emotion.

"Eliza, what are you doing?" my father said, his throat tight. "You're our biological daughter!"

When I looked up again, Alicia's eyes were already dark with rage that she could no longer hide.

So she wasn't some innocent and naïve girl after all.

Good. Saves me the guilt.

From the moment I was reborn, I'd made up my mind. Whether she was innocent or not, I would take back everything that was mine.

Even if she truly knew nothing, I would still take it all. Because it was never hers to begin with.

She and I were switched at birth.

Her mother, pregnant and unmarried, had gone into labor the same day as mine. Seeing how well-dressed and cared for my mother was, she made her decision.

While no one was watching, she swapped the babies.

She didn't even plan to raise me—just tossed me by the river, like trash.

Had Dorothy not found me, I would've become nothing more than a nameless pile of bones.

Compared to Alicia's life of silk sheets and silver spoons, I was the one who truly suffered without cause.

As for the pendant, it wasn't a keepsake at all.

It was a worthless prize Dominic had once won at a street raffle. The only gift he ever gave me.

A cheap piece of glass I treasured for years.

Now, it served its final purpose well.

My father anxiously picked up the shards, insisting that someone repair them. My mother called the family doctor to tend to my wounds.

"Alicia! How could you break your sister's gift and push her like that? Is this how we raised you all these years?!"

Unlike me, who had grown used to Dominic's insults and belittlement, this was likely the first time in her life Alicia had been scolded.

Her face flushed crimson. She stiffened, throat locked, unable to offer a single defense.

But then Chester stepped in, ever her loyal defender.

"Mom, Dad, you've misunderstood," he said calmly. "I saw everything. Eliza threw herself to the ground and smashed the pendant on purpose. I don't know why she would frame Alicia the moment she came home, but I'm sure the house surveillance captured it all. After all, this is the same Eliza who ditched her boyfriend just to return to the Rodney family."

As he spoke, he pulled out his phone. On the screen was a carefully edited clip of me saying to Dominic, "steal my rightful place" and "an outsider like you shouldn't have any say."

And just like that, my parents' brows began to crease.

Chester leaned in and whispered, "You don't know much about surveillance tech, do you?"

Back in the year I had returned to, home surveillance was still a novelty—most families barely understood what it was.

His smirk deepened with satisfaction.

"I warned you, Alicia is innocent. I told you not to touch her. But if you insist on playing dirty, then don't blame anyone else when you get exposed."