I was born frail, a delicate glass doll, yet I lived a life of unimaginable indulgence. My bedroom was a climate-controlled sanctuary, always kept at a precise seventy-two degrees with perfect humidity. Organic ingredients were flown in daily from organic farms across Europe and South America. I had a rotating team of dozens of world-class private physicians, all dedicated to monitoring my breath, my pulse, my sleep. They coddled me so thoroughly that I hadn’t so much as caught a cold in over a decade. But it wasn’t out of pure paternal love. It was because I was the Davenport family’s living talisman. I held their luck in my hands. When I was happy, Davenport Enterprises flourished, securing record-breaking mergers and soaring profits. When I was distressed, the family’s fortunes plummeted like a stone. For fifteen years, my joy kept us at the absolute pinnacle of Wall Street, our stock price untouchable. Until my father brought Hailey home and announced she was his biological daughter—the real heiress. The moment my father left for an international summit, Hailey made her move. She threw my belongings out into the corridor, her eyes wild with a strange, vindictive triumph. “The real daughter is back,” she sneered, tossing my silk pillows at my feet. “Why is an imposter like you still breathing my air? Get the hell out.” An icy draft rushed into my warm sanctuary, and I sneezed. Before I could even gasp, Hailey shoved me. Hard. The heavy oak doors slammed shut behind me. I stood bare-footed on the snow-covered terrace, wearing nothing but a thin silk nightgown. Across the country, on the trading floors of New York, the Davenport stock—stable for over a decade—shuddered. …… 1 Within seconds, a dozen maids rushed out, panic painting their faces as they draped me in cashmere coats and slipped lined boots onto my freezing feet. “Miss Beatrice, please, put this on! You can’t catch a chill!” They bundled me up as quickly as they could, but a dull, throbbing ache was already blooming behind my temples. In Manhattan, the Davenport market value began a steep, sickening nosedive, threatening to strip us of our top spot on the S&P 500. The head housekeeper tried to guide me back inside, but Hailey blocked the doorway, her arms crossed defiantly. “I am the lady of this house now!” Hailey barked, her voice shrill. “I order all of you to get back inside and leave Beatrice alone!” Mrs. Higgins, the lead housekeeper, practically begged her. “Miss Hailey, please, stop this. Mr. Davenport gave strict orders that Miss Beatrice must be cared for at all costs. If she loses even a single hair, your father will ruin us. We’ll never work in this city again!” Hailey didn’t budge. “Why are you so terrified? My father only pampered her because he thought she was his blood. But she’s not. She’s a nobody. I’m throwing out a parasite, and my father won’t say a word. If any of you dare to help her, you’re fired!” She stepped aside, wearing a smug, expectant grin, waiting for the staff to abandon me. She had no idea. She didn’t understand that my pampering wasn’t born of sentimentality, but of survival. My body and the Davenport fortune were bound by a thread of pure gold—one thrived only when the other did. To keep the empire safe, my father would have willingly worshiped me on bended knee. To prevent corporate sabotage or kidnapping, my father had kept this secret entirely to himself and his most trusted advisor. Looking at the terrified, torn expressions of the housekeepers caught in the middle, I tried to warn her, keeping my voice soft but steady. “Hailey, don’t take your anger out on them. Let me back inside. I have a weak constitution. If I fall ill, the consequences for the family will be catastrophic.” But Hailey merely sneered, her eyes glittering with spite. “Look at you, playing the fragile victim the moment Dad’s back is turned. Who are you trying to fool? I’m not letting you back in, and you’re not going to freeze to death from a little fresh air. And ‘catastrophic for the family’? This empire was built on my father’s sweat, not yours. Have you no shame, leech?” The biting wind cut through my coat, and my face went pale. The staff knew all too well what happened when my comfort was compromised. Seeing my deteriorating state and terrified of my father’s wrath, they ignored Hailey’s threats. Pushing past her, they swarmed around me, ushering me back into my climate-controlled bedroom. The medical team on standby immediately rushed in, checking my vitals, while the chef hurried up with a steaming mug of spiced ginger tea to warm me from the inside out. Seeing me treated like royalty once again, Hailey snapped. She marched over, slapped the mug out of the chef’s hands, and shoved the doctors away. “Have you all lost your minds? I am the real heiress! I told you to leave her, and you ignore me? Do you all want to end up on the streets?” She lunged forward, grabbing a fistful of my hair, and began dragging me toward the door. “I am throwing this parasite out today, and I dare any of you to stop me!” No one dared lay a hand on Hailey in her blind, violent rage. My scalp stung with sharp, blinding pain as she yanked me. I could feel warm beads of blood beginning to well up. Desperate to save the Davenport legacy from crumbling, I struggled against her grip. “Hailey, let go of me! I don’t want to fight you for Father’s affection. I don’t even care about the heiress title. But I am hurt. If you don’t let them treat me, you will regret this!” Hailey didn’t even pause. “Who are you trying to scare? You never stood a chance against me anyway. Why would I regret throwing out a useless piece of trash?” I stopped fighting. It was her own choice to burn the Davenport empire to the ground. I had warned her. I only wondered if she would still hold that arrogant, remorseless look on her face when the family was drowning in billions of dollars of debt. Just as Hailey dragged me to the grand foyer, the massive front doors swung open. My father’s chief of staff, Fletcher, had returned. 2 Hailey’s face lit up with a brilliant, eager smile. “Fletcher! You’re back! Where is Dad? Did he miss me so much he cut his conference short?” She had no idea that in less than an hour, Davenport stock had plummeted straight out of the top ten. My father, trapped in high-stakes negotiations, had frantically ordered his chief of staff to board the private jet and fly back immediately. Fletcher took one look at me—bleeding, disheveled, and being dragged by my hair—and his face went deathly pale. “Miss Hailey! What on earth are you doing? Let go of Miss Beatrice this instant!” Hailey gave my hair another vicious yank, tearing a clump from my scalp. “What ‘Miss Beatrice’? She’s nothing but a lazy, spoiled fraud! This house doesn’t need dead weight. I’m kicking her out so Dad doesn’t have to look at her ugly face!” Cold sweat poured down my forehead as I fought back the trembling in my voice. “Did Father return? Fletcher, pull Hailey off me… let the doctors treat me. Please, hurry!” Fletcher lunged forward, physically wrenching me away from Hailey’s grasp. I was burning up with a sudden, feverish heat, my scalp slick with blood. Fletcher completely panicked. He turned to the paralyzed medical team and screamed, “Are you all useless? Can’t you see Miss Beatrice is bleeding? Treat her! Now! Use whatever it takes to heal her immediately!” Fletcher’s voice carried the absolute weight of my father’s authority. The doctors didn’t dare waste another second. They moved with practiced, frantic precision, starting an IV and tending to my head. Fletcher knelt beside me, his voice shaking as he tried to soothe me. “Please hang in there, Miss Beatrice. Mr. Davenport is on his way. He’ll be back soon. Don’t be sad, please. He will make this right. I promise you.” I closed my eyes, forcing my breathing to slow, doing everything in my power to stabilize my emotions to halt the financial hemorrhage of our family empire. But Hailey suddenly shrieked like a wild animal. “Make what right? Why are you coddling her? She’s a fake! I’m the real Davenport heiress! I am!” When the doctors ignored her, continuing their treatment, Hailey grabbed a silver paring knife from the fruit platter on the sideboard, brandishing it wildly. “Get away from her! If any of you touch Beatrice, I’ll gut you!” She drove the medical team back, her eyes wild as she advanced on me, the knife pointed directly at my chest. “You aren’t his daughter. You have no right to steal his love from me. Get out of my house!” As the blade drew closer, Fletcher threw himself in front of me, shielding my body with his own. “Miss Hailey, stop this madness! Don’t you understand? Miss Beatrice is the very lifeblood of this family!” Hailey took his desperate plea as a challenge. Without hesitation, she plunged the blade directly into Fletcher’s shoulder. “You think I won’t do it? I’ll show you exactly who my father’s true golden child is!” Blood immediately blossomed across Fletcher’s tailored suit. Hailey let out a cruel, triumphant laugh. “You’re just a glorified servant. How dare a servant talk back to his master? This is what you get!” The maids and doctors shrank back, utterly terrified by her psychotic behavior. No one dared to move. Unsatisfied, Hailey raised the bloodied knife once more. “Still want to protect her? Let me teach you a lesson about who you actually answer to in this house!” At that exact second, the phone in my hand finally connected. My father’s face appeared on the screen, his expression dark, his voice trembling with a terrifying, suppressed rage. “Hailey Davenport! I told you to take care of your sister. Is this how you do it?” “Go to your room and wait for me. When I get back, you and I are going to have a very long conversation.” Before Hailey could even stammer an excuse, my father disconnected the call. Fletcher let out a weak, ragged sigh of relief. “Miss Hailey… Mr. Davenport is furious. I suggest you start preparing your explanation.” Hailey’s face twisted in rage, her teeth grinding so hard I could hear them click. “Fine. I’ll make sure to give her the absolute best care. I’m sure Dad will be thrilled.” 3 Hailey slammed me down onto the leather sofa. “You’re so fragile, dear sister. You must be freezing after your little trip outside. How about some hot ginger broth? I’ll brew it for you myself.” Fletcher, pale and bleeding, stumbled toward me. “Miss Hailey, please. Stop tormenting her. She can barely sit upright!” I mustered every ounce of my remaining strength, my voice cold as ice. “Father told you to go to your room. Are you going to defy him too?” Hailey let out a sharp scoff. “He’s my father, not yours. Of course I listen to him. And I’m going to take excellent care of you.” She swept up the spilled ginger broth from the floor, scooping the liquid alongside the jagged shards of the broken porcelain bowl directly into a fresh metal basin. She thrust the dark, menacing mixture right into my face. “Weren’t you cold? Here’s your warm drink. Drink up!” Fletcher tried to knock the basin away. “That’s not fit for a human! Miss Hailey, if you keep this up, Mr. Davenport will throw you out of this house the second he returns!” Hailey kicked Fletcher squarely in his freshly bleeding shoulder wound. “The maids don’t know their place, and neither do you. I am the mistress of this estate. Who gave you the right to stand in my way? Have you not had enough of a lesson?” Fletcher groaned in agony, his eyes rolling back as he collapsed onto the floor, unconscious. My heart burned with a white-hot fury. “Hailey! Fletcher has been Father’s right hand for a decade. He is a respected member of this household. How dare you mutilate him?” Hailey tilted her head, her lips curling into a mocking smile. “Oh, Beatrice, I really underestimated you. Not only are you good at playing the victim, but you’re a consummate actress.” She pinched my jaw, forcing my mouth open. “Too bad your little performance won’t save you from me. Since you love drama so much, let’s see how you perform after drinking this!” She poured the mixture down my throat. The liquid, laced with microscopic shards of broken porcelain, scraped down my esophagus. It felt like fire and razor blades tearing me apart from the inside. My body convulsed, and I violently gagged, vomiting the fluid back up. The dark broth, heavily stained with bright crimson blood, splattered across the polished marble floor. Hailey stepped back with a look of pure disgust. “Repulsive.” She turned her gaze toward the trembling maids who stood paralyzed in the corner. “The broth was clearly too rich for my fragile sister. She’s burning up.” “Go fetch a bucket of ice water. Let’s help her cool down.” I was in too much pain to speak. I could only glare at the maids, pleading with my eyes. The staff hesitated, caught in agonizing indecision. Hailey let out a cold laugh. “What, feeling sorry for her? Have you forgotten the ridiculous rules you had to endure just to keep her comfortable?” “I recall that just last month, because the thermostat was set a single degree too high, my father docked half your monthly wages!” My body was indeed so weak that a single degree could trigger a fever. But my father also knew how demanding my care was. To compensate, their salaries were ten times the industry standard, and they worked in shifts of twenty, making the labor incredibly light. They had practically clawed each other’s eyes out to secure a position in this house. Yet, one of the maids turned her back on me, her expression hardening as she went to fetch a bucket of ice water. I could no longer hold back my rage, tearing away whatever polite facade remained. “Hailey, without me, Davenport Enterprises wouldn’t exist. If you do this to me, even if you are his biological daughter, Father will destroy you!” To my father, the legacy of Davenport was worth more than his own soul. He would never tolerate anyone who threatened to dismantle it. My response was a torrential downpour of freezing, ice-choked water over my head. Hailey burst into wild, arrogant laughter. “Have you lost your mind from the fever? What does this company have to do with you? I am my father’s only flesh and blood. What could he possibly do to me?” She scanned the room, looking at the other maids and the silent doctors. “How much resentment have you all built up because of her? Don’t you want a little payback?” “Beatrice clearly isn’t thinking straight. Why don’t we throw a few more buckets of ice water on her to wake her up? If anything happens, I’ll take full responsibility!” 4 The first maid to douse me with water stepped forward, a vicious gleam of excitement in her eyes. “Beatrice, I have tolerated your demanding attitude for far too long. I have never seen anyone so ridiculously fragile in my entire life!” “You brought this on yourself. You deserve every bit of this!” Hailey clapped her hands in delight. “Perfect! Remember, everyone—I am the only true mistress of this house. Only those who obey me get to keep their jobs!” She casually pulled out her phone and wired a hundred thousand dollars to the maid’s account. Seeing the immediate windfall, the other maids lost all hesitation. They rushed to the kitchens, hauling out bucket after bucket of ice water. They shouted insults, dumping the freezing water over me. “You fake! Even an endangered panda isn’t as high-maintenance as you. Now that you’re no longer the heiress, we don’t have to put up with your nonsense!” Not wanting to be left out, one of the private physicians stepped forward, brandishing a syringe. “Because of your low pain tolerance, I had to pull all-nighters for two months straight practicing my injection technique. No one else complains about pain, so why do you? You dramatic little princess—let’s see how much you like this!” He jabbed the needle into my skin over and over. Hailey laughed so hard she had to hold her stomach. “Aren’t you the ‘lifeblood’ of this family? Why hasn’t Dad rushed to save you yet?” “Wake up! He wanted rid of you a long time ago. Either get out of this house, or learn to bow your head to me!” My eyelids grew heavy. I could no longer feel the biting cold; I could only feel my life force slowly, steadily slipping away. The voices around me began to fade into static. Slap! A stinging blow to my cheek snapped me back to consciousness. Hailey’s venomous face hovered inches from mine. “I’m talking to you! Are you deaf?” “Still stubborn, are we? I’ll make sure you understand exactly who rules this house!” I forced the words through my swollen, trembling lips. “Hailey… this house has room for only one of us. It’s either you, or me.” Hailey grabbed my hair and slammed my forehead against the marble floor. “What are you muttering under your breath? How dare you threaten me!” Blood trickled down my forehead, blurring my vision. My skin turned a dull, lifeless grey. The doctor suddenly looked panicked. “Miss Hailey… stop. She isn’t looking good. I think she might actually be dying.” Hailey stomped her heel onto my face, grinding it down. “She was just cursing at me a second ago! She’s an actress. She knows exactly how to fake it!” I stared unblinkingly at the grand foyer doors. Father… if you don’t get here soon, the Davenport luck is going to run out forever. Across the state, Davenport factories suddenly shuddered to a halt due to unexplained power grid failures. Multi-million dollar contracts were abruptly terminated by long-term partners citing sudden corporate restructuring. An anonymous whistleblower filed a devastating lawsuit, threatening to bring the entire empire to its knees. Seeing my silence, Hailey raised the silver paring knife once more. “Playing dead? Get up!” I couldn’t move an inch. I could only watch as the cold blade descended toward my chest. The tip of the knife was inches from my skin. Finally, the heavy double doors flew open. My father burst into the room, his coat unbuttoned, his face pale and drenched in sweat. I mustered every drop of strength left in my fading consciousness. My eyes locked onto his, filled with a cold, unforgiving lethalness. “Father… Hailey cannot coexist with me.” “Do you want Hailey? Or do you want your empire?”
🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “460682”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel
Leave a Reply