Chapter 1

It was my second year back in this house.

My name was Evelyn, the biological daughter who got lost in Central Park at seven.

During the ten years I stayed missing, I fed pigs on a remote farm in Eastern Europe. In weather that dropped to dozens below zero, I got beaten for working too slowly.

I did not get brought back until I was seventeen, covered in scars, returned to this so-called “home,” luxurious to the point of being blinding.

To be honest, every time I watched them sit on silk sofas and sip afternoon tea, then thought about the decade I spent crawling through hell, hatred made my teeth ache.

That hatred stood between us and made the house feel like an icebox. We lived under the same roof, yet we were not even as close as strangers.

——

I finished washing my photos and hung them on the line in the darkroom. One print showed the back of a homeless man. Watching coldly from the sidelines was the only survival skill I had truly learned in those years.

When I pushed the door open, nobody was in the living room. Margaret had left her iPad on the sofa, the screen still lit.

The constant pinging of message alerts drew my attention.

The group chat was called “Project Chloe.”

Chloe was the girl my parents had sponsored a year earlier.

She was blonde, cheerful, and played the piano. She had everything I should have had during the ten years I lost.

I walked over and opened the chat.

There were only four people in it: my dad, Richard; my mom, Margaret; my younger brother, Lucas; and Chloe.

I was the only one missing.

They had made a family group chat, pulled an outsider into it, and shut out their own biological daughter.

So that was how it was. In their minds, those four were the family. I did not even qualify to be added for appearances.

Messages kept popping up.

Richard: The lawn at the Long Island estate had been trimmed. The helicopter landing pad had been cleared too.

Margaret: The 30,000 blue irises flown in from the Netherlands would arrive early tomorrow morning. Chloe, it was your favorite color.

Chloe: I could not wait to see tomorrow’s party!

Lucas: But what about Evelyn?

The chat went quiet for two minutes. I stared at the screen and felt my whole body turn cold.

Then Richard replied.

Richard: Do not bother with her. With that gloomy look on her face, she would only ruin the mood tomorrow. Have the butler put $100,000 on her card and send her out to take photos.

Margaret followed.

Margaret: Yes. Tomorrow was Chloe’s big moment. We were going to announce to all of Manhattan that she was the pride of our family. Nothing could go wrong.

Reading those words, my heart went completely cold.

The next day was my nineteenth birthday, and it was also my second birthday since I came back.

I looked down at my wrist.

A burn scar ran across it. When I was nine, I stole a piece of bread, and the farm owner branded me with a hot iron.

In this house, my scars were a blemish.

But I still held on to one last ridiculous shred of hope. What if it was a misunderstanding? What if they had not really meant to hide it from me?

I took out my phone and called Lucas.

The phone rang for a long time before he answered. The background was noisy, like he was directing workers moving things around.

“What was it?” Lucas sounded uneasy.

“What were you doing? It was loud,” I said evenly.

“N-nothing. I was out with friends.”

I took a deep breath and asked, “Was everyone free tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow?” Lucas paused. “Tomorrow Mom and Dad were busy. There was a very important business dinner. They did not have time to come home.”

“Was that so?” I looked at the chat history on the screen. “Tomorrow was my birthday.”

There was silence on the other end.

After a moment, Lucas said, “I knew. Mom and Dad had told the butler ahead of time. They would put $100,000 on your card tomorrow. You could buy a lens you liked, or go out and shoot.”

It matched the group chat word for word.

“What about Chloe, then? Was she home tomorrow too?”

“She… she had a piano performance tomorrow,” Lucas said. He did not even stammer as he made up the excuse. “Just enjoy your day. I had something to deal with here. I was going to hang up.”

The call ended.

They were not only pushing me out for an outsider, they were going out of their way to lie to me. They were truly afraid their biological daughter, the one who did not belong on their polished stage, would ruin the perfect party they planned for their flawless fake daughter.

It felt absurd.

I raised my phone and photographed the iPad screen, capturing every line of the chat.

Then I bundled the screenshots and sent them to a friend of mine, a reporter at the New York Post.