"Miss, that dinnerware set was so old. I noticed cracks when I was washing it and worried it might cut you, so I went ahead and threw it out."

"Miss, I took that outfit to the dry cleaner's, and they ended up losing it."

Every excuse sounded a little thin, but Georgette's attitude was always apologetic enough that I let it slide.

I figured that was the end of it.

Until Memorial Day.

After visiting my parents' graves, I decided to drive out to the countryside estate they'd lived in for most of their lives and give it a proper cleaning.

It was their favorite place in the world. The garden was full of flowers my mother had cherished, and every room held souvenirs my father had brought back from his travels around the globe. Before she passed, my mother held my hand and told me that house was the work of her and my father's entire lifetime. She made me promise to take care of it.

I treasured that estate more than anything. Even though being there made my chest ache with memories, I still went back regularly after moving out on my own. I'd wipe down every piece of furniture by hand, trim the flowers and hedges in the garden. Every visit, without fail.

But this time, when I pulled up to the front gate, I froze.

The gate, which I always kept locked, was standing wide open.

From inside the estate came the muffled thud of music cranked to full volume and the raucous sound of laughter.

I rushed forward and pushed through the front door.

What I saw stopped me cold.

The living room was destroyed.

Empty liquor bottles, snack wrappers, fruit peels, sunflower-seed shells, and cigarette butts littered the coffee table, the couches, the floor. The leather sofa, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, was pocked with burn marks where cigarettes had been ground into it, each one a charred black crater. My mother's beloved Persian rug was covered in footprints and stained with splatters of red wine. The keepsakes that had hung on the walls were either pulled down and used as photo props or smashed to pieces in the corners.

My fists clenched so tight my nails bit into my palms.

This was the home my parents had lived in for half their lives. Every piece of furniture, every single item on display, they had chosen with care. I normally tiptoed through these rooms, terrified of bumping into anything, of disturbing even a single object.

And now it had been trashed beyond recognition.

I scanned the room and found Cora sitting on the couch directly facing the entrance, surrounded by a crowd of our college classmates.

"Cora, your family is insanely rich! Even a random vacation house out in the suburbs is this luxurious."

"Seriously, I just looked it up. Any one of these paintings on the wall is worth millions!"

"God, your mom is unreal. No wonder she's the richest woman in the city, worth billions!"

"Hey, since we're all classmates, once you graduate and inherit everything, think you could get us jobs at your family's company?"

Cora's lips curled into a smug grin. "Easy. Stick with me, and none of you will ever have to worry about money again."

The whole group erupted into giddy laughter, falling over themselves to flatter her.

Then Cora spotted me standing in the doorway.

Her smile vanished. She rose and strode toward me, chin tilted high.

Crack.

Without a word, she slapped me across the face so hard my head snapped to the side.

"You broke little nobody. You actually followed me here?"

The slap came out of nowhere. I stood rooted to the spot, my cheek burning.

Every pair of eyes in the room went wide.

"Cora, what's going on?"

Cora jabbed a finger at me, her face twisted with disgust.

"This is Beulah Henson. The freeloading stray I was just telling you about."

"Mooching off my family's place in the city wasn't enough for her. Now she's trying to worm her way into the estate my mom just bought me."

I stared at Cora, disbelief rooting me in place.

"Who told you this was a house your mom bought you?"

Cora let out a sharp, scornful laugh.

"My mom told me herself, obviously."

"You shameless little parasite. You latched onto my mother because she's a CEO, didn't you? Living in our house rent-free, hovering around her every second, desperate for her attention."

"Mooching off us and manufacturing every chance you could to get her alone wasn't enough for you? Now you want to come defile my villa too?"

"Let me spell it out for you. My mom said the only reason she let you stay was because your parents are dead and she felt sorry for you. So don't push your luck and start dreaming you can steal my place as her real daughter!"

Georgette had actually told Cora all of that?

No wonder Cora had always treated me with such contempt. In her mind, Georgette was the CEO who lived in the villa. And I was the pitiful orphan Georgette had taken in out of charity.

So all this time, Cora believed I was the one freeloading in her house, scheming to steal her only-daughter status.

It was absurd.

Cora spun around and announced to her classmates at full volume. "Do you guys have any idea how shameless this woman is? She parks herself in my house every single day. You can't get rid of her. I even left a note telling her to stop mooching off our place, and she lost it. Called the cops and told them my mom was bullying her."

"My mom was worried she'd blow it up into a scandal that would hurt the company's reputation, so she just let it go. Bought me this villa so I could live on my own."

"Honestly, sometimes I can't wrap my head around it. I'm my mother's biological daughter, the real heiress, and even I stay in the dorms most of the time. But this broke little orphan? She practically lives at my house like she owns it. It got so bad that when I wanted to wear my own clothes or drink my favorite wine, my mom had to sneak them over from the city penthouse just so this girl wouldn't find out and cry about being mistreated again."

"I have never, in my entire life, met anyone this shameless."

My eyes went wide.

So that was why things kept disappearing from the house. Georgette had been stealing them and bringing them here for her daughter.

What a piece of work.

Fine, Georgette. If you want to play me for a fool, then don't expect mercy.

I pulled out my phone on the spot and dialed the legal department. "Send a team to my parents' countryside estate immediately—"

Before I could finish, Cora snatched the phone out of my hand and hurled it to the floor.

"God, you never stop pretending, do you?" she screamed. "Your parents' estate? This villa belongs to my mom. She bought it for me!"

The classmates piled on, sneering and spitting insults one after another.

"So that's why she never stays in the dorms like the rest of us. I thought she was off doing something important. Turns out she was playing parasite at Cora's house, trying to steal someone else's mother. Disgusting."

"Exactly. Her own parents are dead, so she goes hunting for someone else's rich ones. If her parents knew she was this shameless, they'd be rolling in their graves."

"Some people are just born desperate. The second they see money, they'll do anything to worm their way in. Suck up to a sugar daddy, latch onto a rich godmother, whatever gets them to the top."

"Cora, you're honestly too nice. If someone tried to steal my parents, I'd rip her apart."

I ignored every word. I looked straight at Cora and said, my voice low and firm, "I suggest you call your mother right now and ask her who this villa really belongs to."

Cora's expression darkened. She grabbed me by the collar.

"You conniving little leech. Don't think I don't know what you're doing. You take advantage of my mom's kindness and trick her into giving you everything you want!"

As she spoke, her gaze dropped to my neck. Her eyes lit up.

"That jade pendant necklace looks expensive. Let me guess, you conned my mom into buying that for you too?"

Before I could move, she lunged forward and ripped the necklace from my throat.

Cora was fast and vicious. I didn't even have time to react before the chain was in her hand.

The blood drained from my face. "Give it back!"

My panic only sharpened her cruelty. She studied me with cold, calculating eyes.

"This worked up over a necklace? Must've cost my mom a fortune."

"It was my mother's," I said, my voice cracking. "It's not worth much money, but it means everything to me. Give it back. Now."

I reached for it.

That jade pendant was a talisman my mother had paid for with her life.

I'd been sickly since birth. When I was ten, I was hospitalized in critical condition, unconscious, unresponsive. The doctors told my parents to start making arrangements.

My mother refused to accept it. She went to a temple to pray for me. To prove her devotion, in the scorching heat of a summer that hit a hundred and four degrees, she knelt and bowed her way from the base of the mountain to the summit. One step, one prostration, over and over again.

By the time she reached the top, her knees were torn open to the bone. Blood ran down her forehead and into her eyes. She was barely conscious. But she obtained the jade pendant.

Maybe heaven itself was moved by what she'd done.

I woke up. Against every medical expectation, I opened my eyes.

But my mother never recovered. The ordeal destroyed her health, and she fell into an illness she would not survive.

On her deathbed, she pressed the pendant into my palm and told me to keep it safe. Always.

I'd treasured it every day since. I wore it everywhere, never took it off. It was the thing my mother traded her life for.

It was the one thing no one was allowed to touch.

"The more you want it," Cora said, smiling, "the more I want to destroy it."

Before my fingers could reach her, she hurled the necklace at the floor.

A sharp, clean crack.

The jade split apart. Four pieces. Five. Fragments scattered across the tile.

"No!"

I watched the pieces settle. The pendant my mother had given her life for, shattered on a dormitory floor.

My chest caved in. I couldn't breathe.

"You're an animal!"

Something inside me snapped. I swung my hand and slapped Cora across the face with everything I had.

"You hit me?!" She clutched her cheek, her voice climbing to a shriek. "Beat this bitch down! Now!"

"Whoever does the best job, I'll have my mom give them a million dollars."

The room shifted. Eyes went bright with greed. Fists and feet came from every direction.

"You actually hit Cora? Her mom is the richest woman in this city. Who the hell do you think you are?"

"Exactly. You're a charity case who doesn't even have her own home. You think you can afford a necklace like that? Obviously you scammed it out of Cora's mom. She smashed her own property. Why are you so worked up?"

"Shameless tramp. You steal someone else's mother and then you have the nerve to hit the real daughter? You've got a death wish."

"And don't you dare bring up your own mother. Your parents raised a shameless parasite like you. They deserved to die young."

I was on the ground. Pinned. Shaking with a rage so intense my teeth ached from clenching.

"You'll regret this," I said. "Every single one of you."

The room erupted in laughter, as if I'd told the funniest joke they'd ever heard.

"Oh, that's precious. Cora's mother is the wealthiest woman in the city, and you're threatening us? What are you going to do about it?"

"Seriously. You're nothing but a pathetic orphan who survives by latching onto other people's families. You're already living off handouts, and you think you can threaten us?"

"A bottom-feeder who doesn't even own a roof over her head. All you can do is bark."

They pinned me to the floor, taunting and humiliating me without an ounce of restraint.

Cora, buoyed by the crowd's support, grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked my head back. Her voice dripped with arrogance.

"Regret? I've never regretted a single thing in my life. Go ahead, I'm dying to see how a broke little nobody like you could ever make me regret anything!"

The words had barely left her mouth when a fleet of luxury cars came speeding down the road, one after another, pulling to a stop in front of the estate.