1.

I stood in front of the Rosewood Mansion, my bag slung over my shoulder, my face void of any emotion.

This was the same place I had once called home.

“Arabella, what are you doing just standing there? Come in.” My mother, Eleanor Rosewood, stepped outside. Standing right beside her was the very person who had ruined my life: Vanessa, the real Rosewood heiress. I swallowed hard, my fingers tightening around the straps of my bag as I stared coldly at them.

I thought seeing my mother would stir some emotion in my chest, but I felt nothing. The only thing left inside me was a cold, heavy layer of anger and hatred.

“Mother, leave her alone. After reform school, she still didn't learn a thing,” my eldest brother, Sebastian, said immediately as he stepped out onto the porch.

They didn't even look like they cared that I had returned home. Their eyes held no hint of pity, let alone joy. But who cared? I wasn't the Arabella who used to beg for their love anymore. Now, I was the Arabella who was ready for revenge.

“Sebastian, stop it. Arabella just returned. I'm sure she's still angry, we did send her to reform school. It's all because of me, Ara,” Vanessa leaned into my mother, speaking in that sickeningly innocent voice of hers.

“Angry?” Sebastian reached out and grabbed my hand. I hissed in pain; the wound on my wrist from earlier was still fresh and healing.

“Let go,” I said, my voice cold, tight, and strained.

“You still didn't learn your lesson, right?” Sebastian sneered, raising his hand to strike me. But before the blow could land, I caught his wrist mid-air and hit him back.

I didn't say a word. I just watched as his brown eyes widened in shock.

How could he not be shocked? I was Arabella, after all.

I was their sweet little sister who could hardly speak for herself, the girl they discarded and trampled on whenever they liked, while I still begged for their scraps of affection.

Yes, that was who I used to be.

I used to be the Rosewood's beloved princess, the rightful heiress to the family name. We were one of the richest families in the city, but I had been kidnapped when I was five. When they finally found me and brought me back, my parents and brothers had treated me with overwhelming love.

“I want a cupcake mint,” my six-year-old self had told Sebastian once.

He just smiled, and with a single phone call, custom cupcake mints were delivered straight to the door. Cupcake mints weren't even a real thing, but he made sure they were manufactured just for me.

Nathaniel, my second brother, worked as a designer. Whatever gown caught my eye, he sketched and brought to life. On my fifteenth birthday, he even crafted a dress that looked straight out of Cinderella.

Dominic, my third brother, used to sneak me out of the house under the guise of wanting some "quality time." He would take me shopping and spoil me at luxury spas.

I used to be so happy. I even gifted each of them a diamond ring on their birthdays, bought with the money I saved from everything they showered upon me.

On my seventeenth birthday, they had all promised to love and protect me forever. But everything shattered the day a stranger walked through the door.

“Mr. and Mrs. Rosewood, young masters... Arabella isn't your real daughter. I switched your babies at birth. Your true daughter is Vanessa. I couldn't keep watching her suffer while someone else enjoyed her rightful place,” the nanny, Margaret, cried.

She even produced DNA results proving that Vanessa was the real Rosewood heiress and I was an imposter.

At first, I was simply shocked, happy to know I had a sister, yet devastated that I had unknowingly taken someone else's life. But when I looked up, my mother, father, and brothers were staring at me with cold pity.

“Even if you aren't ours by blood, we will still treat you like family,” they had promised. I smiled through my tears, not realizing that was only the beginning of the end.

They all rushed to hug Vanessa, accepting her into the fold overnight without a second thought, without even questioning if the woman's claims were true.

It didn't take days before Vanessa began throwing tantrums, demanding my room.

“Arabella, let Vanessa stay in your room. She has suffered a lot, and she wants this,” my parents and brothers chorused. But I refused. They had gifted me that exact room on my seventh birthday.

“No, this is mine,” I said, my face twisting with anxiety.

“Mother, father, brothers... I get it. Arabella doesn't want to give me the room. But it's all I want! After suffering for so long without my real parents, can't I just have this one thing?” Vanessa whined innocently.

Crack.

A heavy hand landed across my face, the sheer force of it knocking me straight to the floor.

I looked up, stunned, to see it was Nathaniel, my second brother, the one who had promised never to let me get hurt again.

“After all we've done for you, Arabella, when did you become so selfish? Can't you see Vanessa has been suffering for years?” he shouted, his face contorted with rage.

I looked frantically toward my parents and other brothers, but none of them said a word. Instead, they hoisted me up by my arms and literally threw me out of my own room. For a brief, pathetic second, I wondered if I was in the wrong, if it really was just a room.

Then, I caught the triumphant smirk playing on Vanessa's lips, and the last of my illusions shattered.

After that day, I was banished to a tiny servant's quarters that felt worse than a prison cell. It had only one high, barred window. All of my custom designer gowns were stripped from my closet and handed over to Vanessa.

Why? Because Vanessa claimed she "needed them" since she had never worn anything so beautiful in her life.

I cried through the silent nights, believing that if I just kept quiet and complied, they might eventually love me back. But deep down, I finally understood the truth: I wasn't really their daughter at all.

***

“Arabella, how dare you!” Sebastian shouted, clutching his bruised wrist.

I didn't dignify him with a response. Instead, I simply stepped past them and walked into the house.

I'm back. And this time, I will make Vanessa and the entire Rosewood family pay for what they did. But first, I needed to redo that DNA test and confirm my own doubts.