Chapter 1

I'm a natural-born con artist, and manipulation runs through my veins like it's written into my DNA.

My first boyfriend thought I was too poor, so he cheated on me with the richest girl in our class.

I nodded like I understood, and then I faked a pregnancy. I made sure his guaranteed college admission got revoked, and I squeezed a fat hush money payment out of his family.

The rich girl's brother came after me next and threatened to destroy my reputation.

So I hacked into his company's system and anonymously leaked all the financial data he needed for his IPO to every single one of his competitors. One night, I sent him right back to square one.

After that, nobody dared to mess with me anymore, but they all teamed up and had me committed to a psychiatric hospital. They wanted me to rot in there forever.

Fine. If I'm going down, I'm taking everyone with me.

I pretended the doctors had hypnotized me, and I gave them the location of some hidden treasure. The entire hospital staff and all the patients beat each other bloody trying to get to it first, and the chaos made national news.

So when the wealthiest family in the country came looking for their long-lost daughter, the hospital director personally packaged me up and sent me home with them.

My ex-boyfriend grabbed my birth mother, Helena Reed's, leg and sobbed, "Ma'am, she doesn't have a heart. Your family fortune is massive, but she'll burn through every cent of it."

Helena just thought he was jealous.

But then we got home, and Emily Carter, her precious adopted daughter, blocked my path.

"Charlotte, I know you just got here, but you're not going to have any ideas about the 30% company shares Grandpa left me, right?"

*****

I looked at Emily, my so-called adoptive sister, standing in front of me.

She wore a custom Chanel suit and had her makeup done perfectly, and her voice dripped with false warmth.

She was the girl Helena had adopted from an orphanage after thinking I was dead.

For twenty years, Emily had lived the life that should've been mine, and she'd enjoyed every second of it.

I didn't say anything. I just watched her with a calm, steady gaze.

My silence made her uncomfortable, but she recovered quickly and flashed that perfect smile of hers.

She said, "Charlotte, don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to show off or anything. I just want to remind you that Grandpa's getting old, and he hates seeing family members fight over things."

I nodded to show I understood.

Emily seemed satisfied with how compliant I was being, so she looped her arm through mine and led me into the dining room.

At the long dining table, Helena and my grandfather, Oscar Reed, were already seated and waiting.

The moment Helena saw Emily, her face lit up with pure adoration. "Emily, sweetheart, you're home. Come sit next to Mom."

When she looked at me, though, her expression turned polite and distant.

Throughout dinner, Emily continued to serve food to Oscar and Helena, sharing funny stories about work that made them both laugh.

I became invisible at that table, and I just sat there quietly eating my food.

"Charlotte," Oscar said, and I looked up. "I heard that you weren't doing well before. You were in the hospital for a long time?"

He was trying to be tactful about it.

Before I could answer, Emily jumped in. "Yes, Grandpa, Charlotte went through so much. The director told me that Charlotte would get emotionally unstable sometimes at the hospital, so we all need to look out for her from now on."

Helena's face creased with even more concern.

I set down my fork and wiped my mouth. "Yeah, I learned a lot of things at the psychiatric hospital."

I looked straight at Emily and spoke slowly, letting each word fall into place. "Like how to tell the difference between someone speaking the truth and someone speaking complete bullshit."

The temperature at the table dropped instantly.

Emily's face went pale, and then her eyes welled up with tears. She looked at Helena with that wounded expression. "Charlotte, I didn't mean it."

"Enough," Helena cut me off sharply. "Charlotte, Emily is your sister. How can you talk to her like that? Apologize to her right now!"

I stared at this woman—my birth mother—who was glaring at me to protect her fake daughter, and I felt absolutely nothing inside.

"Why would I apologize?" I said calmly.

"You—"

"Mom," Emily grabbed Helena's arm and said sweetly, "It's okay. Charlotte just got back, and she's still adjusting. I don't blame her."

Then she turned to me with this big, magnanimous smile.

What a perfect performance.

After dinner, Oscar called me into his study alone and handed me an elegant velvet box. "This is a welcome gift. Open it and take a look."

Inside was an expensive diamond brooch, one of the family's heirlooms.

I was about to reach for it when Emily walked in from the hallway. "Oscar, this brooch is too valuable."

She smoothly took the box from Oscar's hands and said to me with false warmth, "Charlotte, you just got back, and you're not familiar with the family's heirlooms yet. What if you lose it? Why don't you let your sister keep it safe for you?"

On my very first day home, she was already trying to strip away my identity.

I looked at her and smiled, "Sure."

Emily clearly didn't expect me to agree so easily, and she froze for a moment.

I took the box back from her hands, and right in front of her and Oscar, I pinned the brooch to my chest.

Then I turned to her with the most sincere expression I could muster. "Thanks for the reminder, Emily. Something this valuable really should be kept close to the body for safekeeping."

Emily's smile stuck on her face like a mask.

That night, I lay in bed and hacked into Emily's computer.

There wasn't much of value on it, except for a charity foundation she ran under her own name.

The books looked immaculate.

But someone like me could never believe the world had saints as clean as this.

Late that night, I sent a message to a familiar number: [I need you to dig into a charity foundation for me. I want all the original transaction records and every detail about where the money went.]

The reply came instantly: [Boss, you getting back in the game?]

I typed back: [Just making some pocket money.]

Then I turned off my phone.

I sneered, "Emily, the game's just getting started."