"Fiona's brother and father?"

Seth doubled over laughing as if I'd just told a joke.

"Look at you two deadbeats. You say you're related to her? Tried to skip out on the bill, and now you're claiming to be her family? You think dropping her name will scare me into letting you go?"

The two male employees behind him chimed in.

"That's right. Our boss is Ms. Miller's sweetheart. Who do you think you are?"

"They're professional scammers, Mr. Zeller. Don't fall for their lies."

Panic tore through me. Dad's breathing was so faint that I could barely hear it anymore.

Then, it hit me that his emergency pills were in my bag.

I sprinted toward the shelf where I'd left it. But I'd barely taken two steps when someone grabbed my shoulder from behind.

Someone wrenched me backward with brutal force. Before I knew it, the two employees had thrown me to the floor.

My body slammed against the tile, and pain exploded through me, making my vision blur.

Seth just stood there holding his phone, scrolling through the live stream comments with a smug grin spreading wider across his face.

"You guys are amazing. I love the suggestions you're giving me. Today, I'm going to teach these freeloaders a lesson and show you all how it's done."

A wave of dread hit me. I knew something terrible was about to happen.

The next second, a hard-soled shoe stomped down hard on my hand. I screamed as a piercing pain shot through me, and I felt my bones crack.

Seth tilted his phone to capture my face contorted with pain and shouted excitedly into the camera, "See that, everyone? He's losing it. We caught him skipping the bill, and he got so embarrassed that he tried to attack us. But we've got him under control."

"Dad…"

Still in excruciating pain, Dad saw my broken, twisted hand, and his body started convulsing violently. He was about to pass out.

I couldn't let anything happen to him.

Seth was reading the encouraging comments on his live stream, and his smile turned vicious. He walked over to Dad and stood over him.

"Stop faking it, old man. Keep it up, and I'll give you a couple of kicks to turn that fake illness into a real one."

Seeing him lift his foot like he was about to kick Dad's chest, I felt my breath catch in my throat.

"No! Stop!" I screamed until my voice gave out.

His employees held me down while I struggled, making me unable to move.

Dad's body was going into shock now, his consciousness gradually fading. If this kept going, he was really going to die.

"Medicine… The medicine…" I stretched my arm desperately toward the shelf.

Seth followed my gaze and strolled over casually. He pulled the pill bottle from my bag and toyed with it, smirking.

"Want this?"

My eyes were bloodshot as I begged, "I'll pay. No matter how much you want, I'll give it to you."

"You should have said that earlier. Could've saved us both some time," Seth said. "The treatment fee is 38,000 dollars. Adding in my emotional distress and lost wages, let's round it up to 100,000 dollars."

It was an absurd amount, but I had no choice. I told him my payment passcode without thinking twice. With a single chime, the money was transferred.

I'd assumed that after the payment was made, this nightmare would end.

But Seth had no intention of giving me the medicine.

"You want the pills? Fine. Crawl over here," he said.

I froze.

"Get on all fours and crawl to me. Bark like a dog with every move forward. And make sure everyone in the live stream can hear you admit you're a scamming piece of garbage who fucked up. Do that, and I'll give you the medicine."

The demand was sick, but I had no choice. I bit down hard on my lower lip until I tasted blood.

Looking at Dad lying there unconscious, I swallowed my humiliation and begged, "Please, don't do this…"

"My dad… He really is Fiona's father and the husband of Silverbrook's wealthiest woman. If something happens to him here, none of you can handle the consequences."

Seth doubled over laughing.

"Still pretending to be related to Silverbrook's richest woman? Who do you think you are? Some random nobody who married into wealth?"

One employee immediately rushed forward to flatter him.

"Exactly. Everyone knows that our boss is the future son-in-law of the Miller family. Ms. Miller is madly in love with him."

Another chimed in, "She even said that if we killed you both today, she'd cover it up."

Seth's satisfaction grew with every word of praise.

"Guess I haven't taught you enough of a lesson. Guys, give him something extra to remember. Show him what happens when he crosses me."

The two employees grinned wickedly as they cracked their knuckles menacingly.

Dad's breathing grew fainter by the second. By now, all the color had drained from his face.

I knew time was running out.

I unclenched my fists and lowered my head, choking out the words.

"Fine. I'll do as you say."

Like a zombie, I crawled mechanically toward Seth and barked.

"I'm a scamming piece of trash. I was wrong."

In the room, Seth and his employees howled with laughter. Even the live stream exploded with jeering comments.

When I finally reached him, I looked up at him.

"The medicine… Can I have it now?" I asked.

Seth should have had his fill of watching me degrade myself. But he lifted his foot and kicked me hard in the chest.

The impact sent me flying backward, and my head slammed hard against the floor. I tasted blood in my throat. And a moment later, it came pouring out.

My vision kept blurring in and out of focus. It felt like all my organs had been knocked out of place.

I could only watch in despair as Seth unscrewed the medicine bottle and dumped every last pill into that bucket of dirty water.

The medicine was gone, and with it, Dad's last hope.

Something inside me snapped as I watched Dad convulse one final time before going completely still.

I screamed, "Seth! I'll kill you."

I swallowed the blood pooling in my mouth, snatched a metal ornament from the floor, and swung it at his head.

I never got close enough to hit him with the metal ornament. The two employees reacted quickly and grabbed hold of me, locking me in place. Several hard slaps landed across my face, leaving me dizzy and disoriented.

"You psycho! You dare to hit me? You must have a death wish," Seth spat.

Despite the ringing in my ears, I kept shouting at them.

"Fiona! When she finds out what you did to us, she'd never let you get away with this. She'll tear you apart!"

Seth stopped hitting me at that moment. He grabbed a handful of my hair and wrenched my head backward, forcing me to look at him.

"You're done for, and you're still playing pretend? You keep claiming you're her brother, but take a good look at yourself. Do you look anything like her?"

His words caught me off guard for a second.

He was right to say that we didn't look anything alike because she wasn't my parents' biological daughter.

During a heavy snowstorm, the six-year-old me got separated from my parents at an amusement park. At the time, I'd heard faint crying coming from the bushes nearby.

When I pushed the bushes aside, I found baby Fiona in a tattered cardboard box.

My parents eventually found me, and we called the police. But surveillance technology was primitive back then, and they couldn't track down her birth parents.

I wanted her as my sister, and my parents felt like fate had brought her to us. Hence, they decided to adopt her.

We'd planned to tell her the truth once she settled down. Instead, the secret boyfriend she'd been hiding from us was now trying to kill the family who'd given her a second chance at life.

Before I could shake off the memories, someone shoved a stinking rag into my mouth.

"You like pretending to be someone you're not, huh? Then, I'll disfigure your face and see how you scam people after this."

Seth pressed a box cutter against my cheek. The cold metal made my whole body go rigid, and all I could do was make muffled sounds through the rag.

I felt something warm run down my cheek. The metallic scent of blood filled my nose, and I closed my eyes in despair.

Just then, I heard tires screeching to a stop outside the store.

Seeing a black Rolls-Royce Phantom pull up at the entrance, one of the employees shouted excitedly, "Ms. Miller is here! That's her car."

Fiona had finally shown up.