I looked to my mother, helpless. "Mom, tell him to put me down."

She leaned in close. Her lips brushed my ear.

"Sweetie," she whispered, "I'm not your mother."

The words landed like a blade.

"Grace is your real mother. I've been making you suffer so she could watch her own daughter destroyed. Once you and Joel have spent the night together—once it's done and can't be undone—I'll tell her the truth."

"I've been waiting years for this chance. Years. And I finally have it."

Her smile twisted into something grotesque, her eyes blazing with a hatred so deep it seemed bottomless.

"Blame your real mother. If it weren't for her, I wouldn't spend every single day drowning in regret. She stole my happiness. She's the reason the man I loved is dead."

"Now it's her turn to know what it feels like to have her heart ripped out."

So this was the real reason my mother hated me.

All the venom she had for Grace—every ounce of it—she'd poured onto me.

The question that had haunted me for years finally had an answer.

When I was little, I'd wondered. Was it because I was Grace's daughter that she treated me this way?

I'd saved up money in secret and gone for a paternity test. The results confirmed I was her biological child.

I'd naively believed she simply despised me—that the cruelty was just who she was.

Now I finally understood. It had all been a misunderstanding.

I grabbed her sleeve with every scrap of strength I had left, desperate to make her see.

"No—I'm your—"

She slapped my hand away.

"What are you standing around for?" she snapped at Joel. "Get her inside!"

Joel clamped his hand over my mouth. "Get me a rope. She's going to fight."

My mother shoved him forward. "Forget the rope. That soup she drank this morning—I drugged it. She's got nothing left. Just hurry up." Her voice dropped, cold and final. "And don't come out until I tell you to."

I grabbed my mother's wrist, tears streaming down my face, shaking my head in desperate, wordless pleading.

She peeled my fingers off one by one.

"Irene, if you want to blame someone, blame your real mother. She's the one who brought this on you."

I watched, helpless, as my mother shut the door with a smile plastered across her face.

A hollow ache carved through my chest, winding around my organs like it meant to split them apart. I couldn't even form a single word of protest.