Chapter 4

“The one who should leave isn’t you. And if you do leave, it shouldn’t be because someone forced you out.”

I spoke slowly, then reached into my bag and pulled out several documents.

My ID. My adoption papers. And… my sister’s death certificate.

I held them out in front of Silas. “Take a good look. Then tell me whether I’m Jenna or not.”

His expression turned strange.

He barely looked at the documents at all. Instead, he stared at me and demanded, almost as if he wanted me to say yes:

“You’re still lying to me, aren’t you?

“If you’re Jenna’s sister, then why don’t you have the same last name?”

I met his eyes calmly and answered in a cold, even tone.

“My sister and I were abandoned as babies. Our parents saw they’d had twin girls and dumped us.

“When we were six, we were adopted by two different families, one after the other. After that, we lost all contact.”

Back then, a separation like that could easily become permanent.

I was adopted by the Sinclair family and taken south, to Harbor City.

Later, because of my adoptive parents’ work, I spent years overseas with them.

My sister, meanwhile, was brought to Northbridge.

It wasn’t as if I never tried to find her.

I did.

But every time I got close—every time I found even the slightest lead—it got cut off.

Later, I learned the truth: my sister’s adoptive parents had done it on purpose.

They had their reasons. I couldn’t really blame them. From the bits and pieces I uncovered, I at least knew they had loved her.

But they passed away five years ago.

And I never could have imagined that the thing that would finally lead me to my sister… would be something this brutal.

Silas held the adoption papers in his hand and kept shaking his head, like he was fighting with himself.

“I don’t believe it. If you wanted to fake these, it wouldn’t be hard.

“Just like that photo of you and your sister. That was fake too.”

That photo had been edited. He was right.

When I was fifteen, I took that picture by myself in Australia. A pair of sisters happened to be taking photos nearby.

When I got home, I turned it into one of me and Jenna.

We looked so alike that making a fake like that had been easy.

So I admitted it without hesitation. “Yes. But the original photo was taken when I was in high school in Australia.

“You knew my sister for years. So you should know she was never in Australia.

“Which means the girl in that photo could only have been me—someone who happened to have her exact face.”

Silas’s lips had started to tremble.

He swallowed over and over without seeming to notice he was doing it, his face drained of all color.

“So what?” Sienna shot back, lifting her chin. “At most, that proves Jenna really might have a sister.

“It doesn’t prove anything else. If anything, it proves even more that she’s putting on a show.

“Because if an older sister asked her own twin to help her with an act like this, of course she’d agree.”

It was as if her words gave him something to cling to.

Silas grabbed my shoulders, his voice shaking with agitation.

“Right. That’s it. The two of you are working together to lie to me, aren’t you?

“Or maybe you really are Jenna, and this whole thing is some huge story you made up.

“There was no kidnapping. No sister. No death. Right?”

His voice suddenly caught.

It was as if he was looking at me, and yet somehow looking through me, searching for someone else.

“Jenna, stop this. Look at yourself. Your clothes are all dusty and wrinkled. You don’t even look like yourself.

“You’ve fought with me for so long, dragged yourself into this state… for what?

“Can’t you just stop?”

I let out a short, humorless laugh, shoved him away, and brushed off my shoulder in disgust.

“You saw the death certificate. It’s official, signed and stamped.

“What are you going to say next—that I forged that too? Faking an official seal is a crime, Silas.”

His whole expression froze.

Then his knees gave out, and he dropped onto the couch.

I looked at him with open contempt. “So, Silas, do you want to come see my sister?”

Silas lifted his head stiffly, then ground out through clenched teeth, “Fine. I’ll go. I want to see what kind of stunt she thinks she can pull this time.”

When we got to the car, Sienna slipped in smoothly after us like she belonged there.

I didn’t say a word.

Privately, I almost laughed.

If she wanted to come, I was more than happy to let her.

But the moment we arrived at the funeral home and Silas saw the body covered beneath a white sheet, his face changed completely.

His feet seemed rooted to the floor, as if they’d turned to concrete. He couldn’t take a single step forward.

“No… that’s impossible…

“How could Jenna be dead?”

I leaned in close to his ear, the corner of my mouth lifting in a cold, mocking smile.

“Silas, my sister left three things for me to give you.

“Do you want them?”

At that, Silas’s pupils shrank sharply.