Sold by My Parents, I Returned as Their Judge

The year I turned eighteen, both the adopted son in our family and I were accepted to college.

But my parents told me—the one who'd gotten into a top university—to go work illegally overseas, so they could fund my brother's enrollment at a $200,000-a-year diploma mill.

"You're a girl. No amount of education is going to change that."

"Barret's a boy. Your mother and I are counting on him to take care of us when we're old!"

I refused. I would rather have died than obeyed.

So they crushed sleeping pills into my food, and while I was unconscious, they bound me and loaded me onto a smuggling vessel headed overseas.

With the $300,000 they got for selling me, my adopted brother seized his opportunity. He started a small company that grew into a fortune.

The day before his company was set to go public, I returned to the hometown I hadn't seen in ten years.

When they saw me again, their faces showed surprise and contempt. They assumed I was just a poor relative crawling back for scraps.

What they didn't know was that I never made it overseas. I'd fought my way off that ship, half-dead, and swum back to shore.

After that, I put myself through school, aced every exam, graduated, and landed a position at a top-tier investment firm. I became the youngest team leader on the State Commerce Investment Review Board.

This time, I was here to investigate my adopted brother's company for tax evasion and fraud.

……

The InterContinental Hotel, the finest in Riverside City.

The Fox family had booked the grand ballroom for their pre-IPO celebration gala. Every seat was filled with the city's elite.

I sat in an inconspicuous spot near the entrance, watching Barret Fox on the stage.

"...Everything I have today, I owe to my parents!"

His voice rang out, impassioned and grand.

"Ten years ago, my family had nothing. And my ungrateful sister stole every cent of our savings and ran off overseas to live it up, leaving us buried in debt."

"It was my parents who scraped together everything they had. They sold what little they owned, even took out loans from loan sharks, just to give me my first round of capital!"

His voice cracked with emotion on stage, and applause rippled through the audience.

My parents sat at the head table in expensive clothes, dabbing at the corners of their eyes.

People swarmed around them with compliments.

"Mr. Fox is so accomplished for his age! Old Mr. Fox, you and your wife are truly blessed to have raised such an outstanding son!"

"Absolutely! Unlike that ungrateful daughter of yours, stealing the family's money and disappearing. What a disgrace!"

I stood in the corner, listening to every word of their lies, and a cold smile crept across my face.

Ten years ago.

For $230,000 in blood money, they had crushed sleeping pills into my birthday cake with their own hands.

When I woke up, I was locked in the bottom hold of a smuggling vessel. Around me were dozens of other girls, all just like me.

If that ship hadn't hit a reef during a storm.

If I hadn't clung to a piece of driftwood with the last breath in my body, floating on the open ocean for a day and a night, I wouldn't have survived.

So what right did they have to live like this?

I drew a deep breath and stepped into the light.

No one noticed me.

Not until I walked up to the head table, pulled out a chair, and sat down.

"Waiter. A glass of water, please."

I rapped my knuckles on the table.

The laughter and conversation at the head table died instantly.

My mother recognized me first.

Red wine sloshed from her glass and splattered across the tablecloth. She stared at me like she was looking at a ghost.

"You... you..."

Her lips trembled.

My father froze too, the smile on his face locking into a rigid mask.

"Dad. Mom. It's been a while."

"Barret's company going public is such a big occasion. Why didn't anyone think to invite his big sister?"

I leaned back in the chair, a half-smile on my face, watching them.

Ten years of hardship had changed me. I was no longer the helpless girl they could do with as they pleased.

"Sharon Fox?!"

My father lurched to his feet, knocking his chair over with the force of it.

Only then did Barret Fox, still standing on the stage, realize what was happening.