Chapter 1

When my wealthy parents finally tracked me down, I was grabbing a punk by the hair and ruthlessly kicking him.

"You cheated on my bestie with some side chick, and you still have the nerve to come back and boss her around? Did you go to bed naked and freeze your brain?"

Right before my parents' eyes, I almost beat that boy until he couldn't even stand.

Just moments ago, they'd been weeping with joy at reuniting with their long-lost child, but in an instant, their smiles froze, and they became helpless spectators to the chaos I unleashed.

When I saw the punk struggling to get up, satisfied, I clapped my hands and turned to my richly dressed parents standing off to the side.

"I was kidnapped all those years ago, and that orphanage was less than 30 miles from where you are. You spent twenty years looking for me. Honestly, I don't think you ever really wanted to find me."

A flicker of embarrassment crossed their faces. They had been raised in high society, and no one had ever talked to them so crudely before.

"Aren't you here to take me home? Are we going or not?" I asked.

Only then did they snap back to reality. My mom stepped forward and grabbed my hand gently. "Sweetheart, we've finally found you."

When I looked at my family, who claimed to love me but pushed me into the abyss in my previous life, a thick, unresolved resentment filled my eyes.

If they didn't like me being their good little girl, then this time, I was not pretending anymore.

I yanked my hand away from Helen Carter, my voice cold. "I'm your real daughter, right? Now that we've finally met, shouldn't you give me a proper welcome gift?"

I held out my hand. "I heard your family's loaded. Give me one million cash."

My birth dad, Richard Carter, frowned, giving me a suspicious look. "What do you need that much money for?"

"I put up with crap for years in that orphanage. Now that I've got the Carter family behind me, you bet I'm getting payback," I shot back, my voice icy.

Richard's eyes flashed with impatience. "You're still hung up on some old, trivial stuff? The Carter family isn't that petty."

Ignoring all the gawking bystanders, I yanked up my shirt, showing off the nasty stitched-up scar on my waist from when my ribs got busted. Then I rolled up my sleeve, flashing the cigarette scars all over my arm.

"This? That's from the surgery after the director Wade broke my ribs with a kick. Your daughter, lost for twenty years, is missing a rib now, thanks to him. Is that what you call some ancient, meaningless grudge?" I spat.

"See these burns? He tried to get his filthy hands on me, and when I fought back, he burned me with cigarettes just to get even. Still think that's just some petty old drama?" I snapped, fury burning in my voice.

"A girl at the orphanage nearly got killed trying to save me. Now she's locked up in a psych ward, chained up like an animal. You really think I'm supposed to just let that go?" I shot back, voice trembling with rage.

Helen's eyes filled with tears. She reached out to touch the scar on my waist, but the moment her fingers brushed it, she flinched like she'd been electrocuted, terrified even a gentle touch would hurt me.

Back in my previous life, their elite attitude just made me feel like I was nothing. I was so nervous around them that I couldn't even string a full sentence together.

When they brought me back to the Carter family, the adopted fake heiress bullied me, my real brother hated my guts, even my own parents didn't care about me, and the maid treated me like dirt.

I bent over backwards trying to be the perfect, obedient daughter they wanted, never fighting, never saying a word back, and I didn't even dare reach out to my old friends from the orphanage, just hoping they'd finally accept me.

But all that got me was endless misery and constant false accusations. No matter how good I was, it was never enough.

On the day I was falsely accused by their whole family, condemned to death, and pushed into the crematorium, my parents' faces showed only a sense of relief, not a trace of sorrow.

They never even considered changing my name from Emily Harrison to Emily Carter, not even after I was dead.

Thank God I got another shot at life. This time around, I was done kissing up to anyone in this family. If anyone bared their teeth at me, I would bite their head off without a second thought.

Watching Helen cry and hug me tightly, I shoved her away without hesitation. Then I turned to Richard, his face full of guilt.

"One million. Just give me a straight answer. Are you going to hand it over or not?" I demanded, my voice cold and unwavering.