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The day I was released from prison, it snowed heavily. I stood at the prison gate for a long time, clutching that piece of paper. The paper had an address—my biological parents' home. Chloe had left it when she visited me; she said she had found them, that this was my compensation for the seventeen years of my life I had given her. I just wanted to go home. A black Rolls-Royce pulled up to the side of the road. The window rolled down; it was Sebastian. “Get in, M0m and D@d are waiting for you at home.” I ignored him and walked towards the bus stop. The moment my foot touched the steps, he pulled me back and slammed me against the car door. “What are you acting for? Did you learn this from Chloe? Two years in prison and this is all you've learned?” I looked at him, and it took me a long time to understand what he was saying. I shook my head and held up the folded, limp piece of paper for him to see. “No, Chloe found them, my biological parents. The address is here, I want to go home.” He tore the paper to shreds: “Come home with me.” I broke free from him and rushed into the street, kneeling on the asphalt, desperately trying to pick up the pieces. The screech of brakes, the honking of horns, the driver's curses—I heard nothing. “Luna Sinclair!” Sebastian yanked me away from a car, his breath coming in ragged gasps, his eyes shifting from fear to disgust. “Want to die? Fine. Just don’t let me see. This cheap blackmail—we’ve wasted seventeen years of our time raising you.” I stared at him, and after a long pause, finally asked, “Was Chloe blackmailing when she cut her wrists?” He froze. For the first time, he couldn’t look me in the eye. My billionaire parents and my brother Sebastian Sinclair drilled one thing into me as soon as I was old enough to understand: I was nothing but a stand-in for their real daughter, a placeholder they never let me forget. Sebastian sneered at every smile I gave him, said I was sucking up for scraps of approval. The Juilliard Gold Medal
