Don't compete. Don't fight. To earn her place in the family she'd desperately craved, Chloe followed every rule. She deferred to Cassie in everything. Three years ago, she'd even made pastries by hand to win her sister's favor. Cassie had collapsed, foaming at the mouth, poison in her system. The kitchen had smelled of vanilla and almond that afternoon—Chloe still couldn't abide either scent without her stomach turning.

Her parents had been outraged. Five years in the gutter had rotted her from the inside, they said. She was unworthy of the Beaumont name. At Cassie's tearful urging, they'd planned to exile Chloe permanently—send her somewhere far from Greenwich, never to return. The discussion had lasted less than ten minutes. Ten minutes to condemn a daughter they'd never truly wanted.

Her brothers, who'd once shown her affection, turned on her completely. "Cassie may have enjoyed your birthright for over a decade, but she's innocent," Harrison had said. "How can you be so vicious just to compete for attention?" His voice had trembled with a fury that bordered on hatred. She'd searched his face for any trace of the brother who had once taught her to skip stones across the estate pond, and found a stranger.

"We don't have a sister as malicious as you," Carter had added, his words clipped and final as a judge's gavel.

No matter how Chloe protested her innocence, no one believed her. Not once. Cassie's tears were always proof enough. The evidence didn't matter. The missing bottle, the inconsistent timeline—none of it could compete with the sight of Cassie lying pale and fragile in a hospital bed.

Conrad had been the one to stop the exile, stepping between Chloe and her parents. But his solution wasn't freedom—it was Remington Disciplinary Academy. He'd decided hard labor and harsh discipline would teach her what she refused to learn. She just needs to suffer enough to understand. He'd announced this with the calm of someone ordering inventory, as if her life were just another business transaction.

Now, cold wind lifted Chloe's matted hair, revealing the hollow planes of her face. Conrad's jaw tightened. "Get up. We're going home."

Chloe obeyed, struggling to her feet, only to collapse as her ruined knees gave out. Conrad turned back, eyes flashing with something sharp and dangerous. "If you'd rather not come back, I can arrange your return to Remington."

"No—please." Chloe scrambled on hands and knees, dragging herself into the car with graceless desperation. Her legs wouldn't cooperate. The sight was pathetic, animalistic. Conrad turned away, refusing to watch. The leather seat was cool beneath her trembling fingers, the interior smelling of cologne and wealth. She curled into herself, making herself as small as possible.

If it weren't for that powerful figure's orders, he wouldn't be here at all. What puzzled him was why someone of that stature would care about Chloe Boyd. The command had come the moment the man returned to New York. Retrieve her. Such a terse order, yet it had carried the weight of an imperial decree. Conrad was not accustomed to being anyone's errand boy, but even he knew better than to ignore a summons from that quarter.

The convoy passed through Beaumont Estate's iconic wrought-iron gates. Conrad exited first, tossing instructions to the staff. "I have business at the office. Take her inside. And replace the seat cushions—I don't want them cleaned. I want them burned."

He thinks I'm dirty. The words hit Chloe like a physical blow. She sucked in a breath through her nose, the pain in her chest sharper than her ruined knees. Expression blank, she climbed out. She had no pride left to wound, and yet somehow, she kept discovering fresh reserves to injure.

In front of the white colonial mansion, a woman was already waiting. Griselda Montoya rushed forward, urgency in every step. Her first words: "My precious daughter. Three years. Do you know how wrong you were?" Her silk dress fluttered in the breeze, pearls clinking softly at her throat.

Chloe's response was mechanical. "I know. I was wrong."

She'd been wrong to hunger for their love. This time, she was coming back to sever every tie. But not yet. Grandmother's health was failing. She needed Chloe's medical expertise. After that, she'd walk away and never look back. The plan was the only thing holding her together, a fragile skeleton key that might unlock a door out of this mausoleum.

Griselda studied her daughter—skeletal, hollow-eyed, radiating a coldness that hadn't existed before. Three years had carved away everything soft. The sight wrenched something in her chest. Chloe was her flesh and blood, however terribly she'd erred. She'd been punished enough. Surely, she'd been punished enough. Griselda's hand fluttered to her heart, but whether the gesture was genuine or performative, even she wasn't certain.

"Good. As long as you understand. You must never be so willful again. Come, let me help you up." Griselda reached out.

Chloe jerked back, scrambling to her feet and retreating a step. Distance. She needed distance. Her eyes were full of wary distrust. They reflected nothing of the daughter who had once run to greet her with wildflowers clutched in grubby hands.

Griselda's heart clenched. "You blame me? Everything I did was for your own good, for your future. Is there any mother in this world who doesn't act out of love for her child?" Her eyes reddened, voice thick with unshed tears. "Don't resent me..."

The grievance in her expression was so convincing you'd think she was the one who'd spent three years being tortured. Chloe stood motionless, making no move to bridge the gap between them. The morning light fell cold and impartial on the manicured lawn.

A slender figure emerged from the mansion, moving gracefully to support Griselda. "Mother, Sister just came home. She needs time to adjust. Please don't blame her for being distant. Give her more time, won't you?" Cassie's voice was honey and sympathy, her slender arm slipping around Griselda's waist with practiced ease. Her gaze swept over Chloe's emaciated form with something that might have been satisfaction, quickly buried beneath an expression of tender concern.

The girl was delicate as porcelain, with an innocent smile and guileless eyes. She extended a hand toward Chloe. "Sister, I don't hold grudges about the past. Let's be a loving family again." Her fingers were perfectly manicured, soft and unblemished—a stark contrast to Chloe's scarred and calloused palms.

The sweetness was nauseating. Chloe felt revulsion twist in her gut. "A loving family? You and me?" The words tasted like ash on her tongue. She had once yearned for exactly this offer. Now it only made her want to scrub her skin raw.

Someone had been watching. Someone who couldn't stand to see his precious Cassie rebuffed.

"Cassie's humbling herself for you, and you still won't accept it? What kind of attitude is that?" Harrison Beaumont had just returned from work, his charcoal Savile Row suit immaculate as he stepped out of his Bentley. He strode toward Chloe, displeasure carved into every line of his face. "You think three years of discipline gives you the right to feel wronged? Do you know Mother hasn't slept through a single night because of you? Her hair's gone white with grief. And Cassie's the one who's been taking care of her in your absence!" His voice cracked on the final word, betraying the depth of his resentment.

Harrison had witnessed everything. Mother's hopeful welcome, crushed. Cassie's gentle overture, met with ice. Three years of discipline, and Chloe still saw herself as the victim? Cassie had nearly died. The memory of that day—Cassie convulsing on the marble floor, foam bubbling at her lips—still woke him in a cold sweat some nights.

Griselda shot Harrison a warning look. "It's not as serious as you're making it. She's just returned. As her eldest brother, the last thing you should do is frighten her."

"Mother, don't protect her. This family owes her nothing." Harrison's anger hadn't cooled. "She committed the crime. The entire family's reputation suffered for it. All of Greenwich knows the Beaumonts produced a daughter capable of poisoning her own sister. Cassie chose to forgive—she's been protecting Chloe's name, telling everyone she never did it. Shouldn't you be grateful?" His words landed like stones, each one weighted with years of accumulated bitterness.

When Chloe stayed silent, Harrison's voice rose to a near-shout. "Say something! Cat got your tongue?"

Chloe blinked hard, fighting the burn behind her eyes. Harrison had once been different. Unlike Carter and Miles, he'd been the one who loved her most. He'd promised to give her half the affection reserved for Cassie. He'd followed through—firing servants who slighted her, designing jewelry for her birthdays, staying by her bedside when she was ill. She remembered the cool weight of his hand on her feverish forehead, the low murmur of his voice reading aloud from a novel she'd mentioned in passing. But every kindness was conditional, easily retracted the moment Cassie showed distress. Such cheap love. She didn't want it anymore.

The standoff stretched painfully until Griselda broke it. "Let's leave the past in the past. Come inside. Your grandmother and father are waiting." Her voice held a note of pleading that seemed to cost her something.

Harrison spun on his heel and marched toward the house. Two steps later, he turned back, voice softening to something unrecognizable. "Cassie. Come with me."

"Yes, big brother." Cassie's smile was radiant as she glanced at Chloe. She said nothing. She didn't need to. The message was clear: I hold all the cards. You hold nothing.

Chloe had long since accepted her role—the only stranger in a house full of family. Even knowing this, even having resolved to discard every emotional tie, to hand over her fiancé, parents, and brothers to Cassie without a backward glance, the sight still stung. Some wounds, she was learning, didn't heal just because you understood their cause.

Griselda guided Chloe inside and instructed a servant, "Take Miss Beaumont to freshen up before she sees the matriarch." Turning to Chloe, she offered a gentle smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Your grandmother is elderly and her health is fragile. Be pleasant. Don't mention the past three years—there's no need to upset her. And you're twenty-five now. It's time to think about marriage. The academy… we can't let anyone know you spent three years there, in close quarters with other men. The gossip would ruin your prospects." She'd already prepared the cover story. "We'll say you were in Switzerland, for your health. You've only just returned." The lie was smooth as polished glass. Griselda had clearly rehearsed it.

Chloe's expression remained flat. She agreed and followed the servant. But a few steps down the hall, she realized they weren't heading toward her old suite. The corridor was familiar, yet subtly wrong—as if the house itself had rearranged its bones to exclude her.