Three days later.

The afternoon sun beat down on the sprawling rooftop terrace of the McConnell penthouse. The glass table was covered in imported British bone china and a three-tiered silver tray of pastel macarons.

Candice Ruan, Diana's cousin, sat lounging in a wicker chair. She wore a vibrant, floral Gucci summer dress that screamed for attention.

"And then the casting director told me I had the exact look Spielberg was going for," Candice boasted, waving a manicured hand in the air.

Diana sat quietly across from her, sipping her Darjeeling tea. She kept her back straight, playing the role of the perfect, attentive socialite.

The glass doors slid open. The butler escorted Harriet onto the terrace.

Harriet wore the exact same faded gray hoodie she had worn three days ago. She looked completely out of place among the manicured hedges and expensive furniture.

Candice stopped talking. She looked Harriet up and down, her face twisting into an exaggerated mask of disgust. She pulled a silk handkerchief from her purse and pressed it against her nose.

"Aunt Eleanor," Candice said loudly, making sure the maids pouring water could hear. "Is this the stray you picked up from the Ohio slums? Does she even know how to use a fork?"

Eleanor, sitting at the head of the table, stiffened. She picked up her teacup, her eyes fixed on the liquid inside. She didn't say a word to defend Harriet.

Harriet ignored them completely. She pulled out an iron-wrought chair, the metal scraping harshly against the stone floor, and sat down. She didn't look at Candice.

Candice's eyes narrowed. Being ignored was the one thing she couldn't stand.

Candice reached across the table. She grabbed a small porcelain plate holding a delicate, gold-leafed French pastry and shoved it roughly across the glass surface. It stopped right in front of Harriet.

"Eat up," Candice sneered. "I'm sure you've never seen anything this expensive in the country. Just try not to get your greasy fingerprints all over the tablecloth."

The terrace went dead silent. The maids lowered their heads, staring at their shoes.

Diana set her bone china teacup down on its saucer.

Clink.

The sharp sound cut through the heavy, suffocating tension.

Diana pulled the silk napkin from her lap and placed it on the table. She stood up slowly.

She walked around the table until she stood right beside Harriet. She reached down, picked up the porcelain plate with the gold-leafed pastry, and casually tossed the entire thing into the brass trash can next to the serving cart.

Candice gasped, her eyes going wide. "Are you crazy? That was flown in from a Michelin-star bakery in Paris!"

Diana looked down at Candice. Her eyes were as cold as the ice water in the crystal pitchers.

"She doesn't need to eat your garbage," Diana said, her voice carrying clearly across the open terrace.

Candice's face flushed dark red. She slammed her hands on the table and stood up.

"Who do you think you are?! " Candice shrieked. "You're defending this... this nobody? She's a stray dog!"

Diana let out a short, humorless laugh. She dug her nails into her palms, feeling the familiar sting of pain to keep her adrenaline in check.

"Get your facts straight, Candice," Diana said, enunciating every single word. "Harriet is the only true bloodline of the McConnell family sitting at this table."

She paused, letting the silence stretch until it felt like a physical weight pressing down on the terrace.

"I am the fake," Diana said clearly. "I am the one who was switched at birth."

The words dropped like a live grenade.

Eleanor's hand spasmed. The teacup slipped from her fingers. It shattered against the stone floor, hot tea splashing over the tips of her pristine Chanel heels.

Candice's jaw dropped. She stared at Diana, completely paralyzed, her brain failing to process the magnitude of the scandal she had just heard.

Two floors below, in the meticulously secured confines of his sunlit guest room, Jorden sat motionless before a stolen, heavily modified tablet. He had tapped into the penthouse's external security cameras the moment he woke up. Watching the silent, high-definition feed of the terrace confrontation, his hands slowly clenched into tight fists. He couldn't hear the words, but he could read lips perfectly. His eyes widened in absolute shock as he deciphered Diana's stunning confession.

Harriet finally looked up. She turned her head, her dark, bottomless eyes locking onto Diana's face, studying her with a terrifying intensity.

Diana stood tall, her spine rigid, meeting the shocked stares of everyone on the terrace without a single flinch.

Candice was the first to recover. A vicious, greedy light sparked in her eyes. Her hand immediately darted into her designer purse, her fingers wrapping around her phone.

Eleanor's fingers dug into Diana's upper arm like steel claws.

She dragged Diana off the terrace, through the hallway, and shoved her into the heavy mahogany study. Eleanor slammed the carved wooden doors shut and locked them with a sharp click.

The soundproofing in the room was absolute. The silence was deafening.

Eleanor turned around, her chest heaving. Her face was pale, her perfectly applied lipstick looking stark against her skin.

"Are you insane?!" Eleanor screamed, her voice cracking. She paced furiously across the Persian rug. "Do you have any idea what you just did? Do you know what this will do to the company's stock if that idiot Candice opens her mouth?"

Diana stood by the heavy oak desk. She kept her head down, letting Eleanor vent.

When Eleanor's breathing finally started to slow, Diana moved.

She slowly lifted her head. Her eyes were already red. Two perfect, heavy tears spilled over her lashes and rolled down her cheeks.

"Mom," Diana whispered. Her voice was broken, trembling with a raw, agonizing vulnerability. "I haven't slept in days. Every time I close my eyes, I see her."

Diana reached across the desk and picked up a crumpled, faded photograph. It was a picture the private investigators had taken of Harriet in Ohio, washing dishes in a diner.

Diana held the photo up, her hands shaking violently.

"I've spent seventeen years wearing custom dresses and playing on a Steinway piano," Diana sobbed, her voice hitching in her throat. "And she was freezing in Ohio. Her hands are covered in scars, Mom. Because of me."

Suddenly, Diana's knees buckled.

She collapsed onto the floor, her knees hitting the thick rug. She wrapped her arms around Eleanor's legs, burying her face against the expensive fabric of her skirt.

"If I keep pretending this is my place, my conscience is going to rot," Diana cried. "I can't do it anymore."

The textbook emotional manipulation hit its mark with devastating accuracy.

Eleanor's rage instantly evaporated. The rigid tension in her body melted into maternal panic. She quickly bent down, grabbing Diana's shoulders to pull her up from the floor.

"Oh, Diana, stop it," Eleanor sighed, her voice softening as she brushed a stray hair from Diana's wet cheek. "This isn't your fault. It was the hospital's mistake. You didn't do anything wrong."

Diana leaned her weight against Eleanor, resting her head on her shoulder. "But Candice was so cruel to her today. I couldn't just sit there."

Eleanor's eyes hardened, a vicious glint returning. "If Candice breathes a word of this to the press, I will personally see to it that her father's company goes bankrupt."

Eleanor rubbed Diana's back soothingly. "Listen to me. Even if Harriet is back, you are still my daughter. The daughter I raised. Tomorrow, I will have the lawyers set up a separate, irrevocable trust fund just for you. You will always be protected."

Hidden against Eleanor's shoulder, the tears on Diana's face stopped. The corners of her mouth twitched upward into a cold, calculated smirk.

Ten minutes later, Diana walked out of the study. She had washed her face and reapplied her powder. Her mask was flawless.

Candice was waiting for her in the hallway, standing beneath a massive oil painting.

Candice smiled, a nasty, triumphant curl of her lips. She stepped into Diana's personal space, lowering her voice to a venomous whisper.

"You're going to introduce me to Spielberg's casting director," Candice demanded. "Or tomorrow morning, all of New York will know you're just a fake piece of trash."

The fragile vulnerability vanished from Diana's face.

Her expression turned to stone. She stepped closer to Candice, forcing her cousin to lean back against the wall.

"Go ahead," Diana whispered, her voice devoid of any emotion. "Leak it."

Candice blinked, thrown off balance by the lack of fear. "What?"

"Do you really think Eleanor will let you survive if you leak a family secret?" Diana mocked, reaching out to casually flick a piece of lint off Candice's Gucci collar. "She'll crush your family before lunch. Good luck in Hollywood, cousin."

Diana turned on her heel and walked away, leaving Candice trembling with rage against the wall.

At the end of the corridor, Harriet stepped out from the adjoining library. She hadn't been hiding by chance; she had specifically followed Diana's path, her hands shoved deep into her pockets. She watched Diana walk away, her analytical mind carefully dissecting the terrifyingly fast change she had just witnessed in her demeanor, silently calculating the real threat level of this supposed fake heiress.

Diana pushed open the heavy, padded double doors of the music room.

The thick velvet carpet absorbed the sound of her footsteps. In the center of the room sat a massive, black Steinway grand piano, gleaming under the recessed lighting. The floor-to-ceiling windows offered a muted, distant view of the Manhattan skyline.

Harriet was standing by the window.

In her hand, she held the small, decorative gift bag Candice had left on the terrace earlier.

Diana stopped walking. The silence in the room was heavy, broken only by the faint, muffled hum of traffic far below.

Harriet turned around. Her dark eyes locked onto Diana with that same unsettling, clinical intensity. She didn't mention the tears in the study or the confrontation in the hallway.

Instead, Harriet tossed the gift bag onto the closed lid of the piano.

"Take out the custom serum your cousin brought you," Harriet said. Her voice was flat, commanding.

Diana frowned, confused. She walked over to the piano, reached into the bag, and pulled out a heavy, frosted glass bottle. It had no label, just a silver pump.

"It's just a custom blend from her salon in Beverly Hills," Diana said, turning the bottle over in her hands. "Why?"

Harriet closed the distance between them. She reached out, her long, pale fingers tapping sharply against the frosted glass.

"Because I've seen something similar at the sketchy clinic I used to clean back in Ohio. The chemical smell is completely wrong for skincare. It's highly corrosive acid. You put that on your face, and your skin melts right off the bone," Harriet sneered.

Diana's breath caught in her throat.

Her modern knowledge kicked in instantly. TCA. At that concentration, it wasn't a chemical peel. It was a corrosive acid. If she put that on her face, it would burn through her epidermis in seconds, leaving her permanently, hideously scarred.

A cold sweat broke out across the back of Diana's neck. Her stomach dropped. She slammed the bottle down on the piano lid as if the glass itself was burning her skin.

If she had followed the original plot, her face would be gone.

Harriet watched the genuine terror wash over Diana's face. A flicker of calculation crossed Harriet's eyes.

"It seems you aren't completely stupid," Harriet said dryly. "You actually know what it is."

Diana forced air into her lungs. She looked up at Harriet, her heart hammering against her ribs. "Why did you warn me?"

Harriet didn't answer. She simply picked the frosted bottle back up and slid it deep into the pocket of her oversized hoodie.

"Because I don't tolerate cheap, dirty tricks in my territory," Harriet said, turning her gaze back to the window.

Suddenly, a faint, almost imperceptible electronic buzz sounded.

Harriet's posture instantly shifted. Her spine stiffened. She raised her hand, her index finger pressing lightly against her left earlobe, right where a micro-communicator was hidden beneath her hair.

She turned back to Diana.

"I'm confiscating this," Harriet said sharply. "Watch your own back from now on."

Without another word, Harriet strode past Diana and walked out of the music room, the heavy doors shutting silently behind her.

Diana stood alone. Her mind was racing.

How did a girl raised in an Ohio trailer park identify high-concentration TCA just by looking at a frosted bottle? And who was she communicating with?

Diana's hands were still shaking from the adrenaline. She needed to calm down.

She walked around to the piano bench and sat down. She lifted the heavy wooden lid, exposing the pristine black and white keys. The ivory felt cool against her trembling fingertips.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and began to play.

Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata.

The notes rose slowly, like fog from a wounded earth—haunting, inevitable, seeping into every corner of the room. Diana did not merely play; she bled into the keys. Each chord carried the marrow of her exhaustion, the cold tremor of her fear, the fragile, stubborn flame of a hope that refused to be extinguished. The music became a living thing—a creature of raw grief and unvarnished power, pressing its weight against the heavy, soundproofed doors as if to test their cruelty. And the doors, for all their thickness, could not keep it in. The air beyond them grew dense, thickened by an invisible sorrow, and even the most frantic heart, racing against its own private terror, found itself slowing—caught, held, and gentled by a grief that was not its own but somehow understood it completely.

As her fingers danced across the keys, the hidden currents of the penthouse began to shift.