On my twenty-fourth birthday, a doctor told me how long I had left to live.

When I called my brother, my family was throwing a birthday party for their adopted daughter.

Laughter and music bled through the phone.

I felt nothing.

"Logan, I'm dying. Late-stage brain cancer."

"Can you send me five thousand dollars?"

Logan Maddox laughed like I'd told him a joke.

"You made up cancer? That's your play for sympathy now? You really think we'd fall for that?"

"When we threw you out four years ago, I told you — unless you cripple both your legs as penance, don't ever think about setting foot in this family again."

I thought about the bills piling up on my phone.

My fingers curled tight.

"Logan, today's my birthday too. Just think of it as a gift—"

He hung up before I could finish.

In the pit of my despair, a text came through:

"Changed my mind. You want the money? Jump off Southbridge. Make my Edna Maddox laugh. Then you get your five thousand."

He didn't know.

Before I made that call, I'd spent every last cent I had picking out a burial plot.

All I needed was that final five thousand.

……

I stepped into the Maddox estate soaking wet, my bare feet shredded by gravel, leaving a trail of blood across the marble floor.

Every pair of eyes in the room turned to me.

"What a buzzkill! A bet's a bet — here, take this card. There's a million on it!"

"And here are my car keys, toss those in too. Who would've guessed Anna Maddox would actually be stupid enough to jump off Southbridge for five thousand dollars?"

"Pathetic. Is this really the same Anna Maddox who used to be a national skiing champion?"

The ones who'd lost their bets took it out on me, piling on insults to make up for the money.

They didn't know.

The girl they were mocking had died a year ago.

"I jumped into the river, Logan. Where's my five thousand?"

It was the first time I'd ever called my brother by his name.

Logan's brow furrowed. Cigarette ash trembled from his fingers and scattered across the table.

"Anna. What I said still stands."

"Four years ago, you put Edna in a wheelchair for life. The day you end up just like her is the day I let you back into this family."

I hadn't even opened my mouth when someone from the crowd blurted out:

"I'll bet Anna caves this time. Three million says she does. Anyone want in?"

"I'm in too. She'll apologize. I'll put up my villa in South Hills."

My bare feet pressed against the freezing floor. My lips, purple with cold, parted slowly.

"Then I'll bet she won't."

I opened the payment screen on my phone and held it up in front of my brother.

The room went dead silent.

After a long pause, Logan let out a scoff.

"Anna. You think after costing me a million dollars, you're still getting money out of me?"

I gripped the phone so hard my knuckles ached. My heart hung suspended in my chest.

"You gave me your word!"

Logan looked at me with something between amusement and contempt.

"When you left this family, you were so proud of yourself. Swore up and down you'd never take a single cent from us."

"Now that you've had a taste of how hard it is out there, suddenly you come crawling back with your hand out."

I stared at the mockery carved into his face.

My fists clenched until my nails bit into my palms. My drenched body wouldn't stop shaking.

"You told me to jump off Southbridge. I jumped. What else do I have to do to get that money?"

The desperation in my eyes was nothing to them. Just entertainment.

Logan smiled. It was a cruel thing.

"You want money? Fine. It's simple. Kneel in front of Edna and apologize. Admit that four years ago, you deliberately sabotaged her ski equipment during the competition and crippled her."

"Then I'll send it."

Four years ago, Edna and I competed in the same skiing championship.

The third and final round.

Her ski snapped mid-run, and the fall left her paralyzed.

From the moment I took the gold, my life plunged into darkness.

My mother, the woman who once loved me more than anything, came to despise me to her core. She threw me out of the house.

My brother, determined to avenge Edna, personally erased every record of my achievements and forced the ski team to cut me loose.

In the end, I was blacklisted. Permanently banned from competition.

After he'd destroyed my dream completely, he still wanted me to apologize.

But why should I apologize for something I never did?

Edna rolled forward in her wheelchair, the crowd parting to let her through.

She beamed at me, clasping both my hands in hers. Her fingers were soft and pampered, the skin white as cream.

Nothing like mine. I'd been working multiple jobs just to cover my medication, and my hands had turned rough and cracked, covered in cuts.

"Annie, this card has over a hundred thousand dollars on it. It's everything I've saved up over the past few years. Take it. Please don't be angry with Logan, okay?"

Logan's expression shifted instantly. "Edna, what are you doing? That's the money Mom and I gave you every year for the holidays. Why would you hand it to an outsider?"

His face darkened, and he glared at me with open hatred.

"Anna, it's been four years. Are you really going to stand here and bully Edna right in front of us?"

"You'd stoop to anything for five thousand dollars. You have absolutely no shame."

I didn't have to do a thing.

The moment Edna opened her mouth, I became the villain.

But once, a long time ago, he'd been the brother who adored me.

The worst fall I ever took during training gave me a concussion. The doctors said whether I woke up was in God's hands.

Logan climbed nine hundred and ninety-nine temple steps on his knees, just to pray for me.

I remembered the day I opened my eyes.

His eyelids were so swollen from crying they looked like walnuts.

That was before everything changed.

Before Dad and his driver died in the accident.

Before Mom brought home the dead driver's daughter, Edna Willow, and gave her our family name.

After that, everything changed.

All Edna had to do was say a few words in front of Mom and Logan, and suddenly I was the jealous, wicked sister.

No matter how I tried to explain.

They never believed me.

Edna spoke again, her voice thin and fragile.

"Logan, five thousand dollars isn't even what you spend on snacks for me in a month. Just let her have it."

Logan let out a cold laugh.

"Edna, you're too naive. That's why people take advantage of you. Can't you see Anna's just putting on a sob story to con you out of money? I'm sick of watching her perform."

"Four years. This time, I'm going to make sure you get the justice you deserve."

I watched my brother shield Edna with every fiber of his being.

My hand drifted to my pocket without thinking, and a wave of bitter irony washed over me.

But Edna's sharp eyes caught the movement.

Mockery flickered behind her gaze.

"Annie, what's that in your pocket? Is it a present for me?"

Before I could answer, she reached into my pocket herself.

What she pulled out was a grimy little rabbit keychain.

Logan's eyes froze for a split second.

He'd sewn it for me by hand when we were kids. I'd treasured it like nothing else in the world.

When I left the Maddox estate, it was the only thing I took with me.

But now I unclipped it and tossed it to Edna.

"It's yours now."

The truth was, I'd stopped caring about any of them a year ago.

That was when I'd been diagnosed with a brain tumor.

Desperate to scrape together enough for surgery, I'd panicked and run to the Maddox offices to find Logan.

And overheard his conversation with our mother.

"Logan, you've spent three years making sure every company in Southport refuses to hire your sister. A skiing champion, reduced to scrubbing floors for strangers. Don't you think that's gone too far?"

"She's still the little sister you doted on since childhood."

Her brother let out a quiet laugh, his tone flat and indifferent.

"Anna lost a decent job, that's all. She can still scrub toilets and mop floors for a living. But Edna lost her legs. Compared to Edna, Anna's already living a blessed life."

That was how I learned the truth. All those years after being thrown out of the family. Every company that rejected my application. The six-by-six basement I'd been crammed into, living a life worse than death.

All of it was a gift from the brother I'd loved most.

From that moment on, I stopped hoping for their love. I stopped begging.

That year, to scrape together money for treatment, I delivered food during the day and worked as a waitress at a nightclub at night.

More than once, I was harassed. My clothes pulled loose, my lipstick smeared across my face.

But because of my brother's interference, not a single person who saw it helped me.

They joined in instead. Mocking me. Forcing drinks down my throat.

And the money I earned was a drop in the bucket.

In less than two months, I couldn't even afford my targeted therapy medication anymore.

So I stopped taking it.

In the end, the cancer spread until it reached late stage.

The doctor said that even if I had the money for surgery now, it was too late.

Edna tossed the keychain onto the ground. She clung to her brother's arm, pouting sweetly.

"Big brother, does she still hate me? Why else would she give me something so old and ugly?"

The atmosphere froze for a split second.

A few of the people there had grown up with us. They knew what that keychain meant to me.

Edna sensed the shift in the room and let her voice go small and wounded. "Did I say something wrong?"

"I'm sorry. I'll pick it up right now."

Her brother's brow furrowed. He pressed her back into the wheelchair.

His gaze swung toward me, his face dark as a thundercloud.

"You're right. Old, ugly things belong in the trash."

His eyes swept over my face, searching. He wanted to see me crumble after watching the rabbit keychain get discarded.

But my expression was ashen. Hollow.

And that made him even more displeased.

"Anna, those precious knees of yours have already hit the floor for countless people these past few days. You think they didn't lend you money because they couldn't?" He paused. "In Southport, whether someone gets something or loses everything comes down to a single word from me."

"Kneel and apologize now, and I'll still give you the money. But if you keep stalling, my patience runs out."

My empty heart seized, as though a fist had clamped around it and squeezed.

The pain sent heat rushing behind my eyes.

There was a time when someone bullied me and my brother made those same threats on my behalf. Back then, all of Southport said the same thing: cross anyone you want, but never cross the Maddox family's eldest daughter.

Because her brother would destroy you.

But now, for Edna's sake, every one of those weapons was aimed at me.

Under Edna's taunting gaze, I clenched the final payment slip inside my pocket.

My fingers tightened until they went white.

I'd once promised someone that I would fight the illness. That I would keep living.

But I couldn't do it.

So the least I could do was buy the plot beside his.

I couldn't leave him lying there alone.

Now I was five thousand dollars short.

"Transfer the money first. Then I'll apologize."

The words left my mouth.

My brother sent the five thousand. Then he let out a sharp, derisive laugh.

"Still playing hard to get? You think that'll make me feel sorry for you? Not a chance."

"Now. Get on your knees and bow to Edna."

I heard the cruelty threaded through his laughter.

But I felt nothing anymore.

Like a machine, I bent my knees. And knelt.

The room erupted in laughter. Every pair of eyes locked onto me.

"I heard you crippled our Edna just so you could win that championship."