Semua Bab The Billion-Dollar Payback Plan: She Woke Up Richer Than The: Bab 1 - Bab 10

They locked me in a cabinet when I was five and when I was nine.A small one, under the stairs. Just big enough to curl into like a broken doll.They told me it was a game. Hide and seek. But no one came looking. No one ever came looking.When I was eleven, they left me in the mountains. It was a family camping trip—one of those "bonding" weekends Elias insisted we take for appearances.We hiked, we laughed (they laughed), and when we took a group photo by the ridge… they told me to go fetch water.I did.When I came back, they were gone. Just gone. No note. No flashlight. Nothing.I wandered for a few hours in the dark—alone, scratched, freezing, scared, crying until my throat gave out—until a park ranger found me half-conscious and covered in mud.When I returned to the McLaren cabin, Norma scolded me for "running off."Elias just gave me a tired look and said, “Next time, stay with the group.”The girls ignored me.Next time. Like it was my fault. Like I hadn’t been left behind on

Two days later, still nursing my pride and bruised soul alone, I found myself wandering through Midtown Manhattan, dressed in secondhand black slacks, a wrinkled button-up, and sneakers that had definitely seen better days. My résumé was clutched in one hand, damp from my sweaty palms and the misty morning drizzle, while my other hand flicked through job listings on my cracked phone screen.No luck. Every kitchen was either “not hiring,” “come back next week,” or ghosted me with silence the moment they saw the McLaren name under “previous employer.”I was tired. Hungry. My feet were aching. And hope? It was on life support.So when I passed a small, dimly-lit convenience store tucked between a laundromat and a pawn shop, I thought, Screw it. I stepped inside, grabbed a lukewarm bottle of soda, and stood in line behind a man yelling about expired coupons.And then I saw it. The lottery machine. The digital screen flickered with the words:“JACKPOT: $10,000,000 — Play Today!”I snorted

Her voice cracked like thunder through the fog.The void trembled. Something in me shifted, pulled, like I was being yanked up through thick water.My body didn’t move. I couldn’t open my eyes. But I felt everything. The cool air rushing in. Hands—gentle, trembling—lifting me. Voices in panic. Sirens. A piercing wail splitting the city sky.Tita Maribel was beside me in the ambulance, sobbing like I was her own flesh and blood.“Hold on, girl. Please, just hold on...”She clutched my hand. Whispered prayers. Rocked me softly like a mother would rock a child. And even in the chaos, even in my fading mind, I felt it—Love. Real, unconditional love.Then, just as I slipped again into the deep dark, I heard a voice. Not hers. Not the paramedics’. Something… otherworldly. Soothing. Warm. Timeless.“I heard your wish, child…”It floated gently into my ear like a secret from another realm.And then—nothing. Silence.*****When I woke again, it was like surfacing from the bottom of an endless

I looked at the manager, my voice cracking. “This is some kind of glitch, right? A prank? Like those TikTok scams where someone 'accidentally' becomes a billionaire and then ends up in jail for tax fraud?”He shook his head solemnly. “No glitch, no prank. It’s… quite real, ma’am. The deposit was timestamped and verified. It was processed three days ago.”Three days ago.The day I died. The day I got that winning ticket. The one I ate. The one he—Elias—stabbed me over. The one he tried to steal after bleeding me out on my living room floor.So how?How was the money in my account?“I don’t understand…” I whispered.And then it hit me.The voice.“I heard your wish, child…”The ticket I ate… The one destroyed in my mouth… It wasn’t claimed through normal means.This—this wasn’t just a lottery payout. This was magic. This was cosmic correction. This was a divine refund with interest for every damn thing I’d ever suffered.And suddenly, my soaked clothes and worn sneakers didn’t matter.B

I dropped to my knees, clutching that coin like it was a holy relic. My eyes watered.Then I looked back into the box and saw at least twenty dimes and a ridiculous amount of pennies. And that’s when I lost it.I laughed.Oh God, I laughed.I laughed until I was wheezing, curled on the carpet, holding a handful of coins like a delirious pirate who just discovered gold in her grandma’s attic.“Who’s poor now?” I cackled to the ceiling, still in my pajamas, hair a mess, a sock half-off my foot. “Huh?! Who’s too broke to pay rent now?!”Every single penny in that box now had the power of a hundred dollars.And my floor?It was paved in rent money.Years of ignoring those coins, years of tossing them aside like trash… and now? They were my salvation.Take that, Elias.Take that, Ivy.Take that, Raven and MJ and every fake friend who ever called me broke, poor, disposable.Because guess what?My trash was now treasure.And my couch coin pile just funded me an entire year’s lease.Laughing