Part 2The Long-Lost Daughter Comes Home

I heard Dad found Vivian under a bridge, soaked to the bone by a sudden downpour, her face pale and shivering.

When he carried her back inside, she threw herself onto her bed, thrashing and crying.

“Leave me alone! You all love Sophia now, not me!”

My mother’s heart broke. She wrapped Vivian in a thick towel, cooing and pleading with her to change into dry clothes. My father kept pressing his hand to her forehead, checking for a fever.

“Hush now, Vivian, don’t cry,” he soothed. “It’s just a necklace. Daddy will buy you a whole new set of diamond jewelry, how about that?”

“Whether Sophia is here or not, you will always be Mommy and Daddy’s little princess.”

At that, Vivian’s tears flowed anew. “Promise you’re not lying?”

My mother hugged her tightly, sobbing along with her.

I got it then. The dramas were real. In the face of favoritism, blood ties were weightless. Thank God I had prepared myself, or the pain would have been unbearable.

My father noticed me sitting quietly in the corner, making no move to help. His face hardened.

“Sophia, we are a family! Are you just going to sit there and watch your sister suffer?”

I shrugged. “What would you like me to do?”

“Go to the kitchen and bring the hot soup Martha made.”

A simple enough task. I considered it a good deed. I went to the kitchen and returned with a steaming bowl, holding it out for Vivian.

She picked up the spoon, but just as she was about to take a sip, she shot me a defiant, triumphant glare from an angle my parents couldn't see.

Here we go. This was the prelude to another classic fake-heiress scheme.

I remained perfectly still, curious to see what she had planned.

Sure enough, she hooked her index finger over the rim of the bowl, and the scalding soup tipped directly onto her lap.

“It’s hot! It’s burning me! Sophia, you…” Vivian’s face twisted in a mask of shock and pain, as if she couldn’t believe what had just happened.

My father rushed over and shoved me so hard I stumbled.

“Sophia Lockwood! Are you insane? How could you do that to your own sister?”

I crashed into the corner of a wall, a large lump immediately forming on my forehead. He looked ready to hit me, but my mother grabbed his arm.

“Sophia, you were wrong,” she said sternly. “Apologize to your sister right now!”

I said nothing. I just unlocked my phone and pulled up the scene where the fake heiress uses a self-harm ploy to drive a wedge between the real heiress and her parents.

“Short-term memory loss?” I asked coolly. “You two forget quickly.”

“Well…”

My parents exchanged a look, and the demand for an apology died in their throats. They busied themselves finding burn cream and fresh pajamas for Vivian. No one noticed the angry, swelling bruise on my forehead.

Once the chaos subsided, another ten thousand dollars landed in my Venmo account.

Not bad. Fifteen thousand on my first day home.