"Katharina." Preston's voice was a low snap as he caught sight of Ainsley descending.

Everyone looked up.

The first thing anyone noticed was the face. Striking. Unapologetic. She wore a simple pale blue t-shirt under an unbuttoned red-and-white striped shirt, the tails tied carelessly at her waist above denim shorts that showed off legs long and pale.

The Thomases all had fair skin. Ainsley's was paler still, almost translucent. It made her eyes-dark, depthless, unreadable-seem even more stark. Every time Preston looked at her, he felt an unbridgeable distance.

Never truly one of us, he thought.

"Ainsley." He pressed his lips together, looked away. His tone was gentler than the rest of the family's. After all, they'd raised her for over a decade. "You packed?"

She reached the bottom of the stairs, the single, light bag a stark contrast to the piles of luggage that usually accompanied their family trips. "Yeah."

Katharina finally saw her. The malicious curiosity vanished, replaced by a mask of wide-eyed, innocent concern. "Oh! Ainsley. I didn't see you there."

Ainsley didn't even grant her a glance. She stepped straight past her.

Ignored publicly. Katharina's lips pressed together in practiced resentment, her long lashes falling as she put on a wounded expression. Her pale face looked even more bloodless, fragile as a white flower swaying in the wind.

Meredith's scowl was immediate. Eleanor's cane slammed against the floor. "Katharina is speaking to you. Are you deaf?"

Katharina instantly looped her arm through her grandmother's, lifting her head to shake it weakly, biting her lip as if defending Ainsley. "Grandmother, please. It's fine. Sister's just upset. It doesn't bother me."

The performance was flawless.

Eleanor's gaze, when it landed on Ainsley, was pure venom. Every line of the old woman's face spelled contempt. "Just as I thought. No Thomas by blood. Raised her for over sixteen years, and she still can't shake that low, petty nature."

"Mother." Preston's voice was a weary plea.

He stepped before Ainsley and pulled out a bank card with practiced magnanimity. "There's a couple thousand on here."

He sighed and pressed it into her hand. The gesture of a man who wanted to believe he was being generous. "Take it. For when you get to your new home. Buy yourself some things. Clothes. Maybe for school."

Preston was always cautious. The Thomases had just secured a major government development project. A critical moment. He wanted no trouble, no loose ends.

Ainsley was a senior. Sent off to some small town now, she would never get into a decent university.

Her life, as far as he was concerned, was effectively over.

Something that might have been pity flickered in Preston's eyes. He pressed the card into Ainsley's hand anyway. Looking at her pale, expressionless face, his voice softened with practiced concern. "You have everything? You can wear that necklace I bought you for your tenth birthday. It was a gift for you-it's yours. No harm in keeping it."

Eleanor's brows knitted instantly. She shot an annoyed glance at Ainsley, but her pride kept her silent over a necklace that cost maybe a couple hundred bucks.

Katharina stood obediently beside her grandmother, echoing Preston's words with sweet insincerity. "Yeah, sis, Dad gave it to you, so you should wear it. You... you might need it later."

She let the sentence hang, the implication clear.

Ainsley lifted her eyelids slowly. The glance she cast Katharina was cold, untamable-the look a wolf gives a yapping lapdog.

Katharina responded with a haughty smile. That patronizing, superior expression matched every other Thomas in the room perfectly. *Same blood,* Ainsley thought. *Same poison.*

She hoisted her shoulder bag higher. She took the bank card Preston had forced into her palm and set it back on the table. Her voice was flat. Unforgiving.

"That necklace is in the top drawer of my old room. You can check if you don't believe me. Aside from the laptop I bought myself with my own money, I haven't taken a single thing that belongs to the Thomas family."

The words landed like ice water.

The Thomases exchanged glances, visibly embarrassed. Especially Eleanor and Meredith, who had stayed silent out of false dignity moments before-their faces darkened instantly.

This was classic Ainsley. Never knew how to be obedient. Always making them lose face.

Katharina glanced at the backpack on Ainsley's shoulders, her eyes flickering with dismissive contempt. She tilted her head, voice dripping with manufactured concern. "Sis, that's not what Mom, Dad, and Grandma meant. You're being way too sensitive. We've lived together for over a decade. Even if you found your birth parents, you're still my sister. We all want you to be happy."

She paused, letting her gaze drop to the bulging backpack.

"If you don't want the necklace, at least take the money Dad offered. I mean, wherever you're going... it's not exactly D.C. You'll need cash for everything. And that backpack looks pretty full-must be more than just a laptop in there."

The implication was surgical. Delivered with a smile.

Preston snapped back to attention, his expression souring as he forced a nod. "Yeah. Take the money. Don't be stubborn."

Ainsley's phone buzzed in her pocket. She glanced at the screen, then back at the family arranged before her like a portrait of hypocrisy. She set the card down one final time-a definitive dismissal.

"No need."

She didn't explain. Didn't justify. Just looked at the caller ID, then toward the door. "My ride's here. I'm leaving."

She walked.

The door clicked shut behind her.

Eleanor exhaled through her nose, a sharp, contemptuous sound. "Hmph. An ungrateful stray, through and through. Sixteen years we wasted raising her, and she couldn't even say a proper goodbye."

Katharina's soft voice drifted through the room, honey over venom. "Grandmother, she's just eager to see her birth parents. Can you blame her?"

She tilted her head, pretending to think. "Though... she said she only took her laptop, but that backpack looked pretty stuffed. Weird, right?"

Preston shook his head, playing the magnanimous patriarch. "Forget it. Sixteen years. Let her take whatever she wants-we don't need the petty cash."

Eleanor leaned on her cane, staring at the closed door as if she could still see the girl walking away. Her lip curled. "Good riddance. She was never one of us anyway."

She turned to Katharina, her voice warming with genuine affection. "And you-stop calling her 'sister.' Someone like her doesn't deserve the title."

Outside, the D.C. heat hit like a furnace. Waves of it rose off the pavement, distorting the air. The streets were nearly empty-just a few elderly residents seeking shade, and one thing that didn't belong.

A matte-black Rolls-Royce Wraith sat idling at the curb outside the manor gates.

Carmel glanced down at his watch. The minute hand had crept halfway around the dial, yet no one had emerged from the villa compound.

Impatient, he rolled down the window to peer outside.

Scorching heat rushed in at once, shattering the cold air inside the car. A low, gruff order snapped from the back seat: "Roll it up."

The voice was quiet, laced with a sharp, unyielding edge, and carried an unmistakable air of authority.

Carmel tensed at the sound, twisting around anxiously. He obediently slammed the window back up, but couldn't help muttering under his breath.

"Frazer, if this were your sister, you wouldn't be so calm! I was supposed to be here two days ago, but you made me go pick you up-resulting in us being delayed all the way until today! My dad just gave me a serious dressing-down over the phone and laid down an ultimatum: I've got to bring her home tonight, or else she'll never set foot in this house again. He even said that if I don't get it done, he'll come pick her up himself..."

Hill Frazier hadn't slept in three days. His head throbbed, and Carmel's chattering sounded like a power drill drilling into his skull. He suppressed the cold fury simmering in his eyes, leaned back, and lifted his lids to cast a blank glance at the young man in the front. His voice was hoarse and low.

"She's also my fiancée."

Those four simple words plunged the car into dead silence.

Three generations back, the Carmel family had built a respectable fortune.

But next to the Frazier family, it was nothing but a drop in the ocean. Carmel had grown up with Hill in the same elite compound, yet over the years, he'd come to realize the chasm between them-between himself, and the unstoppable force that was Hill Frazier.

Of this generation, the Fraziers doted on none more than the man in the back seat, a figure whose name struck fear into the heart of every high-society circle.

If his own grandfather hadn't shared a life-or-death bond with the Frazier patriarch-leaving the family owing a debt of honor-this engagement would never have fallen to his little cousin...

Worry flickered in Carmel's eyes.

His little cousin had been lost for over a decade. From what he'd dug up, she was ordinary in every way-hardly a match for a man like Hill Frazier.

"She's out!"

Carmel's worries vanished in an instant. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a figure slowly walking down the asphalt road leading from the villas.

"That's her. I'll go check."

Carmel called a quick warning to the back, unbuckled his seatbelt, and practically leaped out of the car.

In the bright sunlight, the slender figure drew closer.

The first thing that caught his eye was a pair of legs-slender, pale, perfectly proportioned, and straight.

Unbelievably fair.

Carmel was used to beautiful women-he'd mingled with A-listers and socialites for years-but he still froze, staring dumbfounded.

The girl approaching was barely eighteen. Her skin was so translucent it glowed in the sun, the faint pink of her capillaries visible beneath the surface. She had a porcelain face, pitch-black eyes, and lashes long as a feather duster-three parts cold detachment, three parts pure innocence, and a hint of untamed wildness that slipped out unconsciously.

Even with all the beauties he'd met, Carmel couldn't help thinking: Stunning.