1 The day my father’s mistress kicked me out of the house, my mother was in a car accident that left her a vegetable. In an instant, I fell from the “Princess of Seattle”—the girl everyone envied—to a disgraced socialite with nowhere to turn. The friends who used to worship me didn’t even bother to hide their sneers. To cover my mother’s astronomical medical bills, I became a delivery driver, racing through the city’s rain and wind on a beat-up scooter. My skin, once porcelain and pampered, grew rough and tanned; my features, once radiant, were hollowed out by exhaustion and grief. Adrian Beaumont was my mother’s attending physician. In that suffocating darkness, he was the only one who showed me an ounce of mercy. He was brilliant, a rising star in the medical world with a pedigree to match. I was just the “delivery girl,” a failure in the eyes of our former circle. People whispered behind his back, telling him he deserved someone of his own status. He didn’t care. Every night, he would kiss my dry, chapped lips with a ferocity that felt like salvation. In the quiet aftermath of our intimacy, he would whisper into my ear about our future—a bright, sun-drenched life far away from this misery. He told me we’d have two children, a house with a garden, and a life of quiet dignity. So, I worked myself to the bone. I tried to conceive while pulling double shifts, starting at 6:00 AM and crawling into bed at 2:00 AM. The day the pregnancy test turned positive, I skipped work for the first time in three years. I raced to the hospital, my heart fluttering with a joy I hadn’t felt since before the crash. But when I reached the courtyard, I saw a scene that turned my blood to ice. Adrian stood under the shade of a sprawling oak, a cigarette tucked between his fingers. He looked cold, elegant, and impossibly distant. Surrounding him was the very group of men who had spent years mocking me. “Adrian, man, you’ve been playing with Sierra for a while now,” one of them said, his voice laced with boredom. “Aren’t you sick of her yet? She looks like she hasn’t slept or showered in a decade.” “Lydia’s coming back from London in two days,” another added. “You’re not actually planning on keeping her in the shadows forever, are you?” A third friend let out a lewd chuckle. “You guys don’t get it. If they break up, where is Adrian going to get those high-def videos he sends us? You’ve got a serious voyeur streak, Beaumont.” “I wonder if Sierra would have a stroke if she knew the money she’s been scraping together from those deliveries was actually paying for Lydia’s tuition at Oxford,” someone joked. “Heartless, Adrian. Truly heartless. You stole her heart and her bank account.” Adrian smirked, the smoke curling around his handsome face as he crushed the cigarette butt under his heel. “Don’t rush me. She’s still useful. Lydia is terrified of what pregnancy would do to her body; she doesn’t want to carry. Once Sierra gives me the kids, I’ll dump her and make things official with Lydia.” A chill crawled up from the soles of my feet, freezing the marrow in my bones. I stood there, paralyzed, a ghost in my own life. I walked away, trembling, and finally dialed the number I had been too terrified to call for years. After a week of morning sickness, I had scraped together enough change for the cheapest pregnancy test at the pharmacy. Seeing those two lines felt like the first breath of air after being underwater. Adrian loved children. He talked about them constantly. I thought this was our turning point. But standing outside the hospital, the reality was a bucket of ice water. “Adrian’s got that possessive streak,” one of his friends said, laughing. “He’d never share the videos of Lydia. But Sierra? She’s fair game.” “Shut it,” Adrian snapped, his voice like a blade. “Keep Lydia’s name out of your mouth in that context, or you’re done.” The group scrambled to smooth things over. “Anyway, it’s genius. If Sierra knew the ‘life-saving surgery’ fund for her mom was actually Lydia’s shopping budget in London, she’d lose it.” “Ruthless, man. Truly.” Adrian leaned back against the tree, looking smug. “It’s a long game. Lydia doesn’t want to ruin her figure with a pregnancy. Sierra is the perfect vessel. Once I have my heirs, I’ll hand her the walking papers and Lydia and I can live our ‘happily ever after’ in the house Sierra helped pay for.” “Spoken like a true capitalist,” they cheered. I backed away into the shadows. I fled to my damp, cramped basement apartment and stared at my reflection in the cracked mirror. I was skin and bones. My face was sunburnt and peeling. I had worked through storms and hail because the delivery fees were higher during “extreme weather events.” I had suffered every indignity to save my mother. And they told me the money never even went to her. The tears came then—violent, racking sobs. I had believed in him. I had fallen from the heights of luxury and he was the only one who stayed. He told me he’d work hard to be worthy of me. He promised he’d cure my mother. It was all a lie. He wasn’t a struggling doctor with no family; he was the eldest son of the Beaumont empire. And the woman he was cheating with was my own half-sister, Lydia. I didn’t understand. What had I ever done to them to deserve this level of cruelty? When Adrian came home late that night, he saw me sitting in the dark. He paused. “You didn’t work today?” “There’s a complication with my mom,” I said, my voice hollow. “The hospital says they need another thirty thousand. You know my base salary is barely three thousand a month.” He frowned, playing the part of the concerned partner. “If you’re tired, you should rest. But your mother’s health is the priority.” I turned away from him. He climbed into bed, his hands immediately finding the hem of my shirt. He kissed my neck. “I’d be happy if the first ones were twins,” he murmured. I closed my eyes, a single tear disappearing into the pillow. “Not tonight. I’m not in the mood.” He stiffened for a second, then gave a forced, charming laugh. “You don’t have to do anything. Just let me.” I lay there, a shell of a person, while he took what he wanted. Afterward, he fell into a deep sleep. His phone buzzed on the nightstand. I couldn’t help myself. I looked. Lydia: Baby, next week is our five-year anniversary. I want those diamond earrings we saw—the ones for 3.3 million. Five years. They had been together since before we even met. I wasn’t just the “other woman”; I was the decoy. The 3.3 million… he had that kind of money while he watched me panic over thirty thousand dollars for my mother’s life. He didn’t love me. He didn’t even see me as human. I was a tool, a surrogate, a source of amusement. 2 “Baby, why aren’t you up yet?” Adrian’s voice woke me at 9:00 AM. It was the first time in three years I had seen the sun while still in bed. “I’m not going in today,” I said, staring at the ceiling. He paused while putting on his watch. “And no breakfast?” “No.” His eyes darkened with a flicker of annoyance he quickly masked with his usual “gentle” tone. “It’s okay. Rest. I’ll see if I can pick up an extra shift. We can’t let your mother’s treatment lapse.” He sighed, looking the picture of a man carrying the weight of the world. As soon as he left, I went to the hospital. Through the glass of the ICU, I saw my mother lying there, as still as she had been for years. The “advanced equipment” and “imported drugs” Adrian claimed to be buying? The room looked exactly the same as it did three years ago. It was all a performance. He was using my blood, sweat, and tears to fund the woman I hated most. A nurse walked by and saw my red eyes. She patted my shoulder. “She’s stable, honey. Don’t worry too much.” Before I could respond, my phone rang. A familiar number from the hospital’s billing department. “Miss Fairchild? Dr. Beaumont probably told you. Your mother has a viral infection. It’s critical. We need fifty thousand for an emergency procedure. Please come down and settle the balance so we can move her to surgery.” I looked at my mother through the glass and started to laugh. It was a cold, jagged sound. “The longer you wait, the higher the risk,” the voice on the line pressed. I had done this dozens of times. I had been the fool every single time. As I walked toward the exit, I saw the door to Adrian’s private office was ajar. I stopped when I heard voices raised in anger. “Adrian, what if she just gives up? What if she stops paying?” “She won’t. As long as I keep her mother’s life dangling over her head like a carrot, she’ll keep running those deliveries. Lydia wants her to suffer, and as long as Sierra is in the mud, Lydia is happy. This is her fate. It’s her punishment for being born.” Every word was a needle in my heart. I stumbled out of the building, collapsing onto a bench in the hospital garden, sobbing so hard I couldn’t breathe. “Sierra, if things ever get so bad you can’t see a way out, call this number.” My mother’s voice echoed in my head. She had made me memorize a number years ago, a “break glass in case of emergency” contact. With shaking hands, I dialed. “Hello?” a man’s voice answered. Deep, steady, powerful. I couldn’t speak. My throat was too tight. “Bianca? Is that you?” The voice on the other end started to crack with emotion. “It’s her daughter,” I whispered. “Sierra Fairchild.” There was a long, heavy silence. “How is your mother?” “Not good. Not good at all. She told me to call you when I had nowhere left to go.” “That stubborn woman…” the man choked out. I learned then that my mother wasn’t just a fallen socialite. She was Bianca Fairchild, the runaway heiress of the Fairchild empire—the sister of the wealthiest man in the country. She had chosen my father for “love,” turning her back on a fortune. My grandfather had given her an ultimatum: the man or the family. She chose the man. They were both too proud to blink. My grandfather had forbidden anyone from looking for her, but my uncle told me that in his final moments, my grandfather had whispered her name. He had regretted it all. He realized that no matter who she chose, he should have been her safety net. I hung up, my heart a messy knot of rage and grief. I hated my father for his betrayal, I mourned for my mother’s wasted sacrifice, and I burned with a need to destroy Adrian. Unlike my mother, I wasn’t going to let the traitors have their happy ending. I was drowning in my thoughts when a cold shock hit me. 3 Lydia stood there, holding a garden hose, spraying me directly in the face. “You’ve got such a great body, sister. Why hide it?” I realized too late that I was wearing a thin white sundress. Soaked through, it became a second skin, transparent and revealing. Lydia sneered, her eyes raking over me with mock pity. “Is that a safety pin holding your bra together? And are those… patches on your underwear? God, you’re pathetic.” She dropped the hose and stepped closer. She was dripping in designer labels. A pair of emerald and diamond earrings flashed in the sunlight, so bright they were blinding. She reached out to pull my hands away from my chest. “Why are you covering up? It’s not like the whole city hasn’t seen you looking like trash.” Behind her, a group of wealthy young men and women laughed. “We’ve seen her looking worse than this. Don’t play the innocent flower now, Sierra.” Lydia smirks. “You’re desperate for money, right? How about this: I’ll give you five hundred thousand dollars if you fetch something for me.” She unclipped one of the earrings and tossed it into the murky, stagnant decorative pond nearby. The girls around her gasped. “Lydia! That’s one of the earrings Adrian gave you! Those are worth forty million!” “Don’t worry,” Lydia said, her eyes fixed on me. “Sierra’s a pro at finding things. Just make sure she doesn’t pocket it.” The crowd erupted in laughter. Lydia stepped forward and shoved me. “Go on! That’s my five-year anniversary gift. Adrian will be devastated if it’s lost.” I lost my balance. As I fell backward, the edge of a heavy iron bench slammed into the small of my back—and my stomach. A sharp, searing pain shot through my abdomen. I gasped for air, clutching my stomach. Lydia’s heel connected with my ribs. “Go! Get in there!” The others joined in, kicking and mocking. The pain in my stomach was intensifying, a twisting, agonizing cramp that felt like a knife. I thought I was going to die right there on the grass. Splash! “Lydia!” The sound of someone hitting the water and Adrian’s panicked voice happened simultaneously. I watched as Adrian ignored me entirely, diving into the pond to “save” Lydia, even though the water was barely waist-deep. He pulled her out, frantically performing mouth-to-mouth as if she were drowning. He stripped off his white coat and wrapped it around her. “Are you okay? Talk to me. We need to get you to a room for a full exam.” Lydia leaned into his chest, casting a triumphant look over his shoulder at me. “My head hurts,” she whimpered. “My foot… everything hurts. I need a kiss to feel better, Adrian.” Adrian let out a breath of relief and pinched her nose playfully. Then, amidst the cheers of their friends, he pulled her into a deep, passionate kiss. “I guess I haven’t been keeping you satisfied enough,” he murmured against her lips. I stared at their retreating figures, the physical pain almost numbed by the sheer absurdity of it. I didn’t even notice the red stain spreading across the white fabric of my dress between my thighs. Only when they were completely out of sight did the world go black. 4 When I woke up, the hospital room was silent and empty. My throat was parched. I tried to stand up to get water, but the sound of voices from the stairwell stopped me. “Adrian, you don’t actually love that girl, do you? Why did you even look back at her? I told you I didn’t want you going back for her.” Lydia’s voice was sharp with jealousy. Adrian, the man who was always so composed, sounded desperate to please her. “I swear to you, Lydia, she means nothing. It’s pure utility.” “Lydia, please, stop this. I only went back because she’s carrying our child. The sooner she has that baby, the sooner we can be together for real. Don’t you want that?” Lydia’s voice softened into a pout. “Really?” “I promise. If it weren’t for the kid, she could drop dead and I wouldn’t blink.” Lydia giggled. “Fine. Next month is my birthday. I want her to deliver the cake. I want to see her face when I humiliate her in front of everyone. I want to see her break.” “Whatever you want,” Adrian whispered. “I’ll make it happen.” “Do you think I’m mean, Adrian?” Lydia asked, her voice becoming small and victim-like. “But she bullied me our whole childhood. I can’t forgive her. Seeing her suffer is the only thing that helps my depression. You want me to be happy, right?” “Of course, baby. I have a thousand ways to make sure she shows up.” I wanted to scream. I wanted to laugh. Lydia, the bully who had made my life hell since the moment my father brought her home, was playing the victim. And Adrian was her willing executioner. Over the next few weeks, Adrian started coming home later and later. Sometimes not at all. He’d return with lipstick on his collar or the scent of her perfume clinging to his skin, almost as if he wanted me to notice. The collection calls for my mother’s surgery became constant—ten, fifteen times a day. One night, Adrian’s phone wouldn’t stop ringing. He finally snapped, storming onto the balcony to answer. “Look, I can’t squeeze blood from a stone,” the voice on the other end—one of his doctor buddies—said. “She doesn’t have the money. What am I supposed to do?” Adrian’s face was dark. “I don’t care. I’m busy planning Lydia’s birthday. Just keep the pressure on.” “But—” “Listen to me. Lydia wants her miserable. If there isn’t enough natural suffering in her life, manufacture it. Do I really have to teach you how to do your job?” He hung up. He didn’t love me even a fraction as much as he loved his cruelty. I had believed his lies for three years. I sat in the dark, my body shaking. Adrian’s “friends” had cornered me a few days prior, claiming I owed them for mother’s “missed payments.” They had broken my leg and knocked out two of my teeth. On the night of Lydia’s birthday, I sat in my ruined basement apartment. I had smashed everything I owned. It was as beautiful a wreck as our relationship. Adrian called. His voice was “gentle” again. “Sierra, we need the money. Lydia’s offering a huge tip for a delivery tonight. Just do this one thing for your mother. We have to endure, for her.” I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. “I’ll be there.” I needed to see it through. When I arrived with the cake, Adrian had his arms around Lydia. When she saw me, she feigned shock. “Oh, Sierra! You’re crying. You look like a stray dog.” Adrian didn’t even look me in the eye. He just stroked Lydia’s hair. Lydia pulled out a stack of hundred-dollar bills and threw them at my feet. “How about a dance, sister? For old times’ sake? I’ll pay you for every minute.” My broken leg throbbed with a dull, sickening heat. I reached down to pick up the money, intending to throw it back at her, but Adrian grabbed my wrist. “Don’t be ungrateful,” he hissed. “I can pull the plug on your mother tonight. Do you understand?” I grabbed his lapels. “You’re a doctor. You can’t do that!” Lydia laughed and held up her phone. “I wouldn’t be so sure. Your mother’s life is in my hands.” On the screen was a live feed of my mother’s room. A masked man stood by her bed, holding a syringe filled with a bright blue liquid. I fell to my knees. “I’ll do it. I’ll do anything. Just don’t hurt her.” I stood up, swaying on my injured leg, and began a clumsy, humiliating shuffle to the sound of their jeers. “Wait,” Lydia whispered, her voice like a demon’s. “You’re wearing too much. It’s not sexy enough.” The crowd began to chant. Strip! Strip! Strip! My knuckles were white. I began to unbutton my shirt, my dignity stripping away with every layer. Just as I reached my underwear, my phone buzzed in my pocket. A private number. I answered it. “Sierra? It’s your Uncle Arthur. We did a check on the facility. Sierra… your mother died three years ago.”
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