Chapter 1

To help Emily, the girl who was mistakenly raised as the Sterling heiress, become a pianist, my own mother, Irene Sterling, closed the lid of my piano and crushed my finger bone by bone.

"Nina, your sister has talent," she said. "Don't stand in her way. I'll make it up to you."

My fiancé, Charles Goodman, stood there watching without a word, looking at me like I was just some jealous girl who didn't know my place.

Instead of crying or begging, I simply looked down at my hands, knowing I would never play again. "Fine," I said quietly with a nod. "This is me settling my debt."

That night, I set the piano room on fire and burned away every trace of myself in that house.

Then I walked out into the rain with my ruined hand and disappeared.

Five years later, I found myself standing on the stage of the Aurelian Hall in Wiesville. When I raised my baton with my back to the audience, my former family and ex-fiancé recognized me, and they completely lost their minds.

*****

The heavy Steinway lid slammed down with a dull thud.

Then came the sound of bones breaking.

Then, for a split second before the pain hit, I felt an icy cold cut through me.

It was my own mother, Irene, pressing down on the lid with all her strength. Her well-maintained face was twisted with a disturbing urgency she probably thought was love.

"Nina, let go. Just let go!" Irene screamed, like she was the one hurting. "Emily's international competition is tomorrow. You're her big sister. How could you take her practice room right now? How could you be so selfish?"

The pain shot through my fingers. My face turned pale, and cold sweat soaked through my back, but I didn't make a sound.

I just stared at her in disbelief.

All of this just to make room for Emily, the girl who was switched at birth and mistakenly raised as the Sterling heiress. All to keep me, the real heiress who only recently came back, from overshadowing her.

I couldn't believe my mother could actually do something like this.

"Mom..." Blood from my fingertips slowly dripped down the black and white keys. "My hand... my hand is still under the lid."

Irene froze for a moment, as if just realizing what she had done.

She quickly let go, and the lid sprang back up.

My right index and middle fingers were bent at strange angles, swollen and red, with the nails completely torn off, leaving them raw and bloody.

"Oh my god," Emily gasped from the doorway, clutching her sheet music. Tears instantly welled up and spilled down her cheeks. "Nina... your hand...

"Mom, this is all my fault. If I hadn't mentioned wanting to practice, none of this would have happened. If Nina's hand is ruined, I don't know how I'll forgive myself."

"Emily, don't be scared." Irene hurried to comfort Emily, the delicate fake daughter she had raised for twenty years, without even glancing at me as I trembled in pain.

"She was careless. And none of this would've happened if she hadn't insisted on staying in the practice room," she continued while wiping Emily's tears, and then turned to glare at me with anger. "Nina, you did this on purpose, didn't you?

"You're trying to mess with Emily's head with your little stunt before her competition tomorrow. How could you be so cruel?"

The word "cruel" hit hard.

I stared at my bloody right hand and realized that these two years back with the Sterling family had been a mistake from the start.

I was the real heiress, raised in an orphanage, who made it into a top music school through nothing but talent and sheer determination.

When the Sterlings found me two years ago, I thought I finally had a family.

But there was no room for me in this house. Emily had already taken it all.

She was elegant and delicate, pampered like a princess. I was just the weed that sprouted where it didn't belong, the unwanted presence that made her uncomfortable simply by existing.

"Truly cruel," a deep, cold voice cut in from the doorway.

The speaker was Charles Goodman, the Sterling family's longtime family friend and my so-called fiancé.

But he had grown up with Emily as his childhood sweetheart, and he never hid his disgust for me, the unwanted fiancée who came out of nowhere.

He walked straight past me without even looking at my hand, moving directly to Emily and positioning himself in front of her protectively. "Emily, don't cry. Someone this calculating isn't worth your tears."

He turned to me, his voice dripping with contempt. "Nina, just to force Emily out of the competition, you'd resort to something as low as hurting yourself? You really think destroying your own hand will make people feel sorry for you?"

The pain made my vision blur, but I forced myself to stand straight and look him in the eye.

This was the prince I had dreamed about countless times back in the orphanage, the kind from fairy tales. Now his face was twisted with cruelty.

"Charles," I said quietly, "my fingers are broken."

"Serves you right," he scoffed.

To him, I was just a weed from nowhere, dark and unwanted. I could never compare to Emily, who had been groomed since childhood to be the future mistress of the Goodman family.

Charles kept going. "Someone with a heart as twisted as yours doesn't deserve to play the piano. Maybe it's better your hand is ruined, at least you won't be able to hurt Emily anymore."

Irene finally snapped out of it. She looked a little uneasy seeing the blood on the floor, but Charles's words gave her the perfect out.

"Right. Nina, listen to me," she said, reaching for my uninjured left hand. But I pulled away before she could touch me.

She awkwardly withdrew her hand, and then straightened up with renewed conviction. "Emily leaves for Wiesville tomorrow. This competition is her lifelong dream.

"You're talented, and I won't deny that, but you started late and you're self-taught. You'll have other opportunities down the road. Just step aside this time."

She glanced at my hand. "It'll heal in a few months. I will make it up to you. Name your price, or that apartment in the south of the city. Whatever you want."

Compensation was always their answer after every single time they hurt me.

To them, my dreams were just trash that they could buy and throw away, while Emily's dreams were like stars in the sky, precious and untouchable.

I looked down at my hands, calloused from years of practice, now completely ruined.

These hands were supposed to be my future. I built that future alone in the orphanage, practicing fingerings on cold winter nights and working basement jobs just to afford a single music tape.

Now it was all gone.