The hospital discharged me on a Tuesday morning.

I didn’t have any clothes of my own, so a nurse gave me a lost-and-found gray hoodie and a pair of faded jeans. They hung loose on my frame. Beneath the cloth, thick medical gauze wrapped around my ribs and shoulder. It smelled like cheap antiseptic and dried blood.

I limped down Fifth Avenue. My destination was three blocks away: the Howard legal offices, where Reed’s attorneys were waiting with stacks of paperwork.

The winter wind bit through my thin clothes. With every step, a sharp needle of pain flared in my left thigh where the wolf had torn the meat down to the bone. Halfway down the block, my knee buckled.

I caught myself against the glass frame of a luxury department store. I just needed five seconds to breathe.

"Hey! Back off the glass!"

A heavy hand clamped onto my wounded shoulder. White fire exploded behind my eyes.

Before I could speak, the store security guard twisted my arm and shoved me hard. My sneakers slipped on the wet sidewalk, and I tumbled through the open revolving doors onto the lobby floor.

My palms hit the cold, polished marble with a loud smack.

A few women gasped. Footsteps stopped. The huge, echoing atrium went dead quiet. Within seconds, shoppers formed a circle around me. Dozens of phone screens lit up, cameras pointed straight at my face.

"We don't want your kind begging in here," the guard barked, standing over me.

I tried to push myself up, but my ribs burned.

"Look who it is," a voice called down.

I tilted my chin up.

High above, leaning against the brass railing of the second-floor mezzanine, stood Cain and Alessia. Cain wore a charcoal coat that cost more than a car. Alessia stood beside him in a cream designer jacket, her diamond earrings catching the chandelier lights. They had shopping bags at their feet.

Cain looked down at me on the floor. For three seconds, his eyes locked onto mine. There was no pity in them. Just cold, quiet calculation.

He didn’t move. He didn’t say a word. He just gave a tiny nod to his personal bodyguard standing nearby.

The man nodded back, walked down the grand staircase, and strode right up to me. Without hesitation, he grabbed the collar of my borrowed hoodie and ripped it down my back.

The fabric tore away.

The bloody surgical bandages around my chest and arms were laid bare under the bright display lights. Murmurs broke out across the crowd. People zoomed in with their phones.

Alessia leaned far over the railing. She looked thrilled. Her voice rang out, loud and clear, echoing off every wall.

"Look at her!" Alessia announced to the entire floor. "She's a nameless stray who followed us here! I am the Howard heiress, and this gutter rat never learned her place!"

People stared. Nobody stepped forward to help me. I sat on the freezing stone, my hands flat against the floor, feeling the draft against my raw skin.

Then, tires screeched out on the curb.

Three heavy black SUVs mounted the curb right in front of the glass doors.

The heavy doors flew open. Six men in tailored black suits entered in a tight wedge formation, pushing past the store guards like they were made of paper. Braylon Long led the front, his eyes hard as flint.

Right behind them came Reed Howard.

He walked with the calm, measured pace of a man who owned the ground he stood on. And beside him was Miranda Black.

Miranda didn’t look at the crowd. She didn’t look at the cameras. She walked straight past the lobby, straight to the escalator, and went up two steps at a time. She didn't slow down for a second.

Alessia turned to smile at her. "Mother, look what—"

*CRACK.*

Miranda’s open palm struck Alessia’s face with terrifying force.

The sound echoed through the high glass ceiling like a gunshot. Alessia stumbled backward against the railing. Her head snapped sideways, and one of her heavy diamond earrings tore free, clinking loudly as it bounced down the metal escalator stairs.

The entire room held its breath.

Miranda didn’t say a word to her. She didn’t spare Alessia another glance. She turned on her heel, walked briskly down to the main floor, and knelt directly on the marble beside me.

Her expensive wool coat spread across the dirty floor. She gently placed one warm, firm hand on the small of my back.

"I've got you," she whispered. Her voice trembled, but her grip was like steel. "Stand up with me, sweetheart."

She helped me rise to my feet. She didn't let go.

Reed Howard stopped in the center of the atrium. He didn't yell. He didn't wave his arms. Every single camera phone in the building swung from me to him.

"Twenty years ago," Reed said, his deep voice carrying into every quiet corner of the store, "our daughter was taken from us by a hospital error."

He paused, looking up at the mezzanine.

"The woman standing up there has lived on a stolen life. She carries no Howard blood, and she has no claim to our name."

He looked back down at the crowd, then gestured toward me.

"The only Howard in this building is the girl you just put on the floor."

He stopped. He didn't repeat himself. He didn't need to.

A suffocating silence dropped over the atrium.

Up on the mezzanine, Alessia held her burning, red cheek. Her missing earring was gone down the escalator, her mouth hung open, and the color drained completely from her face.

She stared down at us, and for the first time in twenty years, the floor gave way beneath her feet.