"Crack!"

Watching Jocelyn Winfield crumple onto the floor, Judy Winfield was the first to rush over.

Her hands and feet had gone ice-cold. She struck Sarah Winfield hard across the face, her voice shrill. "Jocelyn already knelt down and apologized to you. What more revenge do you want? How can you be so vicious? How did I ever end up with a daughter like you? Get out of my sight!"

"If anything happens to Jocelyn, I will never let you off!"

A high-pitched ringing filled Sarah's ears, and for a moment she couldn't hear. She cupped her cheek and sank to the floor, as if she'd been thrown back to that hopeless afternoon five years ago.

Everyone's faces twisted as they accused her, screaming curses until their voices broke.

It was the nightmare she would never forget.

"It wasn't me!"

Sarah convulsed slightly, as if from shock. Why, when she'd already swallowed her grievance, would these people still not let her go?

She snapped back to herself, pulling free of the collapse rising inside her, and said coldly, "I didn't push her!"

Sarah pressed the recorder gently. She was waiting for the scene to blow up a little more. She wanted every single person to see Jocelyn Winfield's true face.

The commotion swelled. Judy wouldn't hear a word of it. Eyes red, she clawed at Sarah. "You think Jocelyn's insane? That she'd just throw herself down the stairs?"

"Enough."

A cool, faintly hoarse voice cut through the uproar. Ralph Sanchez stood at the third-floor railing, leaning against it, his expression somber.

"Ralph, you're up there?"

Judy looked up, startled, and every gaze in the room turned to Ralph.

Judy let out a cold laugh. "Sarah won't admit it no matter what. Ralph, you tell us. Did Jocelyn fall on her own, or did Sarah push her? Let's put her to rest for good."

Ralph had been on the second floor. From there he must have seen exactly what happened at the turn of the staircase!

Sarah rose and looked straight at him, her voice soft. "You were on the third floor the whole time. You saw everything, didn't you? I didn't push Jocelyn."

Her eyes were rimmed red, and she looked utterly helpless, yet her other hand pressed the recorder on again.

Ralph steadied her, smoothing her gown, a flicker of tenderness in his eyes. But when he lifted his gaze, he saw Jocelyn lying in Judy's arms.

Her face was terrified and bloodless, as though she might shatter in the next breath. She was, after all, the girl he'd carried in his heart for so many years, and she was carrying a child now. Ralph couldn't help but hesitate.

He gripped Sarah's shoulder, his expression gentle, and told himself that even if the Winfields despised Sarah, she was still their true daughter by blood, and blood could not be changed.

But Jocelyn was only their adopted daughter. If she fell out of their favor, she'd be finished for life.

After a moment's thought, Ralph pressed his lips together and said, one word at a time, "I saw it. Sarah pushed Jocelyn."

What? The color drained from Sarah's face in an instant. She tilted her head up in disbelief, as if she had never known Ralph at all.

So whether it was five years ago or five years later, Ralph's heart would never lean toward her.

She had always thought all the torment and pain of her past life, and Ralph's hatred of her, were because she had pushed Jocelyn.

But only now did she understand. That wasn't it.

"Crack!" Sarah lifted her hand and slapped Ralph across the face.

Sarah defended herself one last time, then silently switched off the recorder in her pocket. That one line was enough.

"Sarah Winfield!"

Rolf Winfield's face was livid. Nothing mattered more to him than his reputation, and to have his own daughter harm his beloved adopted daughter in front of all the elite of the Capital's north side enraged him all the more.

If this wasn't handled properly, wouldn't everyone learn that the Winfield family had no proper upbringing?

Rolf's hand came down across her face.

"What did your sister ever do to you, that you keep bullying her again and again? Come home with me!"

One of the wealthy wives let out a cold sneer. "Raised in the slums. No wonder that wildness can't be scrubbed out of her. She needs a good, hard lesson."

The birthday banquet had been thrown into chaos, yet Old Mr. Harris showed no anger. He only urged Rolf, "Sarah isn't that kind of child."

But Rolf wouldn't listen. He forced Sarah home and brought out the rattan cane.

"There's a Sanchez grandchild in your sister's belly. If anything happens to it, can you bear the consequences?"

Sarah struggled, unwilling to yield. "Dad, have you forgotten? I'm your real daughter! I'll say it one more time. I didn't push her. She threw herself down!"

"Enough!"

Sarah Winfield froze where she stood, pinned by the disappointment in Judy Winfield's eyes.

Judy pressed a hand to her chest, her voice breaking with grief. "If I'd known you couldn't stand the sight of Jocelyn, I'd have rather my own daughter had died!"

The words landed like a stone. Sarah went rigid.

When she'd first been brought back into the family, Judy had been kind to her too, gentle and tender. Even so, it had never come close to how she treated Jocelyn.

Sarah understood now. Even if she played them the recording, they wouldn't repent. They'd only despise her for being a scheming, calculating thing.

She drew in a slow breath. If that was how it was, then there was no reason left to spare their dignity for the sake of some so-called family ties.

She switched on the camera built into her recorder.

The barbed rattan cane came down on her without mercy, and her skin was soon torn to a bloody mess.

She forced her head up and saw their faces clearly. Cold. Contemptuous.

By the ninety-ninth stroke, Sarah was soaked through with cold sweat. Only once she was sure the whole punishment had been captured did she let herself pass out, at peace.

She woke in the hospital. Ralph Sanchez was gently dressing the wounds on her arm.

"Sarah, you're awake. Does it still hurt? I had the doctor give you painkillers."

He tended to her with painstaking care, bringing her the chicken soup from her favorite place, trying to feed her.

Sarah knocked the soup aside and turned her face away.

"You saw it. You saw the whole thing. You saw Jocelyn fall on her own. Why? Why did you lie?"

Her voice was ice as she demanded it. Before, she could still convince herself that none of them knew she'd been falsely accused, that that was why they always took Jocelyn's side.

But now Ralph had watched every second of it, and he'd still chosen Jocelyn. It left her lost in a deep, bewildering fog.

Then what had those five years of suffering been for?

"Why? Just tell me why," she said at last, no longer sure whether she was demanding it of Ralph or of her father and mother.

"Ralph, I'm your wife. I'm a person too. Why do you all defend Jocelyn, over and over again? Why?"

Sarah was in agony, and she was demanding an answer for the woman she'd been in her last life.

When she moved as if to tear out her IV line, Ralph caught her hand. "Sarah, calm down."

He pulled her in to soothe her, his voice low. "Listen to me. I had my reasons. You're the Winfields' real daughter. No one will ever do anything to you. But Jocelyn was adopted. If Uncle and Aunt Winfield found out, how would she go on living?"

"So?" Sarah steadied herself and asked it back, cool on the surface, though something in her face was quietly coming apart. "So you chose to let her slander me, chose to make my life miserable. Is that it?"

"You knew. You knew none of them like me!"

Ralph held her tighter, promising it again and again. "Don't cry. You still have me, Sarah. I'll never betray you. I won't ever let you get hurt again."

Liar. All of them, liars. Ralph was Jocelyn's accomplice.

Sarah scoffed inwardly and pushed his hand away, exhausted. "Get out. I'm tired. I want to rest."

"And there won't be any 'again' for us."

There hadn't been in her last life. There wouldn't be in this one.

Ralph didn't catch the second part. He tucked the blanket around her and said gently, "Then rest well."

At the door, Ralph suddenly pressed a hand to his chest, gripped by the feeling that he'd lost something important.

He turned and stared, unwavering, at Sarah's serene, sleeping face.

It was fine. Sarah loved him to the bone. Whatever he did, she would forgive him.

Once the door shut, Sarah opened her eyes, transferred the footage to her phone, and sent a copy to Lawyer Simmons.

"Once the divorce goes through, I'm suing Rolf Winfield for domestic abuse."

The pain she'd endured last life, she would pay back this time, piece by piece.

"Sarah Winfield!"

Sarah was still deep in sleep when someone yanked her up by the collar and slammed her to the floor.

"What did you do? Do you hate Jocelyn that much? She was only messing around with you, and you'd take her life for it?"

Sarah's whole body burned. Feverish and hazy, she pieced the truth together out of Ralph's words.

Jocelyn had been kidnapped.

A pack of thugs had dumped her in an abandoned warehouse and tormented her for a full day and night. When she was rescued, her clothes were in tatters and she was covered in blood.

"You still dare say it wasn't you?" Fury blazed in Ralph's eyes. "My people looked into it. That gang lives right there in the slums where you spent more than ten years. Sarah, you all crawled out of the same slums. You're going to tell me you don't know them?"

"You're the wife I married in front of everyone, the rightful Mrs. Sanchez. We won't press charges against you. But you owe Jocelyn an explanation. You may be the true eldest daughter of the Winfields, but that doesn't give you the right to abuse her however you please."

Sarah nearly laughed. The whip wounds on her back scraped against the icy tile, the pain washing her vision white, but she didn't cry out. She only turned her head a fraction to look at Ralph.

"Who exactly has been abusing whom this whole time?"

From the moment the Winfields took her back, Jocelyn had loathed her to the bone. Fragile and pitiful in front of others, she mocked and humiliated Sarah every way she could when no one was watching.

But because Mr. and Mrs. Winfield had raised Jocelyn since she was small, and because Ralph had grown up alongside Jocelyn, they all assumed Jocelyn could do no wrong. The one at fault had to be her, the girl raised for more than ten years in the slums.

Sarah laughed, badly timed as it was. She lifted her chin and, past all caring, said, "So what do you want me to do?"

Looking at her indifference, Ralph felt a sudden flicker of unease. But the image of Jocelyn covered in blood came back to him, and his expression went cold again. "Whatever Jocelyn went through, you'll go through the same."

Sarah agreed without any expression at all.

"Fine."

The instant Ralph came storming in, she'd pressed the auto-dial on her phone to call the police. They were probably already on their way.

There was no point reasoning with a man like Ralph. Better to let the law do the talking.

This time it was Ralph who was caught off guard. He'd expected Sarah to beg, to cry, to plead. He hadn't expected this kind of calm.

An anger he couldn't name surged up in him, and his face turned to ice.

The bodyguards dragged Sarah to the mountain retreat. Jocelyn lay in bed weeping, Mr. and Mrs. Winfield keeping watch at her side, their eyes full of tenderness.

"I don't understand why my sister still won't let me go. She's right to hate me. After all, I stole more than ten years of her life."

The choked voice, paired with Jocelyn's innocent, pale face, made it impossible not to ache for her.

Ralph tucked the blanket in around her and said gently, "It isn't your fault either. Don't cry. I'll have Sarah apologize to you."

Sarah dredged up a sneer. "I'm sorry."

Jocelyn turned her face aside and let the tears fall. "I suppose an apology is all I deserve. What can I expect, being nothing but a fake heiress. My sister could ask for my death and it would be fine, let alone a kidnapping."

Ralph lowered his eyes and soothed her softly. "It won't stop at an apology, Jocelyn. To make up for it, whatever you went through, she'll go through too."

He turned back, and his brow furrowed when he took in Sarah's thin clothes and bloodless face.

Jocelyn caught the shift in his expression at once and said softly, "Ralph, I suddenly have a craving for that old duck soup place on the west side. Would you go get some for me?"

Ralph nodded and glanced at the pack of thugs. "Get to work."

With that he left without a backward glance, off to buy Jocelyn her soup.

He didn't necessarily mean to torture Sarah. He only wanted the gang to give her a scare.

Sarah was dumped in the empty lot behind the retreat. She switched on her voice recorder.

The thugs closed in, sneering. They'd done enough dirty work in their time that a few slaps came easy.

"Sarah Winfield, now that you've flown up the branch and turned into a phoenix, don't forget your old acquaintances. Us boys were your loyal admirers back in the day. If that rabid dog Wilfred Vance hadn't stood in the way, you'd have been mine long ago."

"But it's not too late even now. If that Miss Winfield hadn't paid us to help her put on a little show, I don't think I'd ever have gotten the chance to touch you in this life. What do you say?"

Slick, sickening hands roamed over her body, mixed with words she couldn't bear to hear. Sarah's head spun, but she forced herself to stay calm.

The sound of fabric tearing cut deep into her. A cramp knotted low in her belly, and she pushed the words out through sheer will.

"I've already called the police."

At the mention of the police they finally pulled back. By the time they realized something was wrong, a large pool of blood had already spread out beneath her.

"Boss, she's bleeding!"

Panic-stricken and scattered, they instinctively bolted.

"Sarah!"

Just before she lost consciousness completely, Sarah thought she heard a familiar voice, low and hoarse, a little like Ralph's.

Probably just her imagination. Wasn't this whole gang acting on Ralph's orders?

In that last thread of awareness, she knew with perfect clarity: hiring men to hurt someone, deliberate assault, that was more than enough to make Jocelyn and Ralph choke on the consequences.

Sarah closed her eyes. Five years was time enough for her to grow.