After the scandal-ridden actress everyone loved to hate disappeared, her forensic pathologist mother's hair turned white overnight.

A massive reward was posted. Three years passed without a single lead.

Then, three years later, something else shook Capital City.

Bradley Whitney, the fugitive killer, had been captured. Given the extreme severity of his crimes, the trial was broadcast live around the world.

On camera, the presiding judge began the introduction:

"Over the course of a decade-long criminal spree, the defendant took the lives of one hundred and nineteen people through brutal means—"

Bradley let out a low laugh.

"Idiots. You still haven't figured it out."

"It wasn't a hundred and nineteen. It was a hundred and twenty."

"There's one more. Some D-list celebrity, I heard. Infamous online. I hacked her apart while she was still breathing. And the broth that night... oh, it was delicious..."

I hovered in the air above them, and even now, I could almost feel the bone-deep agony of the blade splitting my skin.

The sheer cruelty of his words sent a shockwave through the courtroom. The judge's voice cut through sharp and furious:

"You're lying! Our investigation shows you have no history of dismemberment."

Bradley smiled.

"True. I am lazy."

"That's why the person who carved her up for me, cut by cut, was her own mother."

He turned toward the expert witness panel, grinning wide.

"That would be our esteemed, impartial Dr. Bernice Norris."

——

Every pair of eyes in the courtroom locked onto my mother.

She stopped clicking her pen. A cold smile spread across her face.

"You're saying I dismembered my own daughter?"

"What a joke! Everyone knows my Carina is a star. She's spent the last three years filming movies, attending events, living her best life!"

Members of the jury panel spoke up to back her:

"That's right! Everyone knows Dr. Norris's daughter Carina Delgado is one of the biggest actresses in the country!"

"I just saw her on TV yesterday leading a charity event with her fans! She's the pride of our city!"

"I suspect there is no hundred and twentieth victim. This is nothing but a stalling tactic to delay his execution!"

I drifted to my mother's side, shedding a few silent tears.

Three years apart, and the only daughter she remembered was Carina.

She'd forgotten the one who'd been thrown out of the family three years ago. Me.

Bradley raised an eyebrow.

"Carina Delgado... Interesting. So she's a big star, huh? No wonder she could throw down five hundred grand to have her own sister killed."

On the global livestream, live comments flooded in, cursing him for slander, praising Carina as pure-hearted and kind.

He sneered at every last one. Nothing but contempt in his eyes.

Until one username caught his attention.

RosemaryDelgadoDieB*tch: "Stop spreading lies about Carina! She's too soft-hearted and kind to ever hire a killer!"

Bradley grinned.

"Pretty sure that's the name of the one who died."

"Rosemary Delgado. Nice ring to it, don't you think?"

At the sound of that name, a name no one had spoken in a long time, the courtroom fell silent.

Even the flood of live comments froze for a beat.

Faces shifted. Every gaze turned toward my mother, watching for her reaction.

Everyone in Capital City knew that Dr. Bernice Norris's younger daughter was sweet, well-behaved, and famous across the country.

And her older daughter was just as well-known.

But for all the wrong reasons. Scandals. Diva behavior. Faking charity work to line her pockets. Worst of all, a jealous streak so vicious she'd repeatedly sabotaged her own sister.

Whenever she got called out, she'd lose it, screaming and lashing out like a woman unhinged.

The internet had finally had enough. They banded together and drove her out of the industry for good.

Then came the final straw: she'd shoved her sister in front of a car. When that came to light, she ran away from home and never came back, no matter how large the reward her mother offered.

In front of my mother, everyone carefully avoided mentioning me, the family's disgrace.

My mother's hand trembled around her pen.

She pulled out her phone. Her fingers missed the keys several times before she slowly typed out a message:

"Are you okay?"

I drifted behind Mom and watched her scroll through three years' worth of text messages. There were too many to count.

"Where the hell did you go? If you're not coming back, then don't ever come back!"

"You pushed your sister in front of a truck, and the second I called you out, you ran off! You're absolutely impossible!"

"I must have the worst luck in the world to have a daughter like you! You might as well just drop dead!"

But every now and then, scattered between them in the small hours of the morning, there'd be two quiet lines:

"…I dreamed you died. Woke up in a cold sweat."

"You really won't come home? Not even once?"

I cried so hard I couldn't stop. Mom, do you know? I can't come back anymore.

Do you know that the night you helped my sister prep those ingredients…

The knife you brought down on that black bag wasn't cutting through ostrich meat.

You helped her do it with your own hands. I'm in the mountains, in the water, in the stom…

I can never come back!

Just as Mom was about to hit send, the live comments started flooding in:

"Oh please! What stunt is Drama Queen pulling now? Teaming up with a murderer to smear our Carina and her mom!"

"Don't worry, ma'am! It's all just another one of Drama Queen's acts! Our Carina is a ray of sunshine. She'd never hire someone to kill!"

"That woman has never said an honest word in her life! Did you already forget how she pushed Carina in front of that truck?!"

I didn't!

That time, Carina said she wanted to make peace. She promised she'd stop setting me up.

But as we walked along the road, she grabbed my hand and suddenly lunged toward an oncoming truck.

I held on for dear life and pulled her back. Once she was safe, she looked up at me, eyes brimming with tears:

"Do you really want me dead, sis? Then I don't want to live anymore!"

At that exact moment, twelve close-up cameras captured her tear-streaked face in perfect precision.

Mom thought about it for two seconds, then slowly deleted the four words from the text box.

She typed something new instead:

"Still pulling dirty tricks on Carina! Why didn't you actually go and die!"

Compared to the possibility that Carina had hired a hitman, Mom found it easier to believe I'd paid someone to fake my death and frame her.

I stood right in front of Mom, shaking my head as hard as I could.

Mom, I'm really dead. I really wasn't scheming against her.

Mom, don't you remember? You peeled the flesh from my bones with your own hands. It hurt so much…

Mom, could you hold me just one more time, like you did when I was little…

We were in the same room. But Mom couldn't hear me.

Just like the past decade and more under the same roof, when she could never hear me either.

Mom looked up again. Something harder had settled into her eyes.

"That ungrateful daughter of mine loves her luxuries. She lives in top-tier penthouses with security that would never let the likes of you past the gate."

"Now tell me. This 120th victim. Did you make it up or not?"

Bradley reached into his jacket for something, grinning as he fished it out:

"Loves her luxuries? That's hilarious. Top-tier penthouses? When I found her, she couldn't even afford a meal!"

"I told her to get on her knees and I'd give her a case of instant noodles. She looked up at me with those desperate eyes and just knelt right down, like a little lapdog. One clean shot to the head!"

"That's when I realized she didn't have a single thing of value on her. Nothing at all, except this."

Bradley held up a gold bracelet.

"Even broke as she was, she still wouldn't sell it. Tch."

The moment Mom saw the bracelet, her nails dug into the armrest of her chair. A vein pulsed at her temple.

"Where did you get that!"

It was the birthday gift she'd given me. Or more accurately, it wasn't meant for me at all. It was meant for Carina.

Carina thought the bracelet looked dated, so Mom tossed it to me as an afterthought.

It was the only gift I'd ever received. In all those years, the only one.

When I left, I took nothing with me. Nothing except that bracelet.

Mom froze for a split second, and something flickered in her eyes. Whether it was guilt or regret, I couldn't tell.

Bradley closed his eyes, ignoring her completely, and started whistling in the courtroom.

"I asked you where you got it!"

Bernice was livid. The words tore out of her like a command.

She forced herself to calm down, then almost immediately sent a text to Carina:

"That twenty thousand I told you to transfer to that disgrace every month—did she take the money?"

Carina replied quickly:

"Of course she took it, Mom! You know how greedy she is, there's no way she wouldn't~ I've been checking her social media, she's been traveling all over the place these past few years, living it up!"

Attached were screenshots of the transfers, twenty thousand dollars at a time.

A moment later, she sent another screenshot. This one was from my social media.

In the photo, I was dressed in something revealing, surrounded by tan, shirtless men in the Maldives, my expression hazy and indulgent.

The date was yesterday.

That's not true, Mom!

The photo was fake! It was AI-generated!

I never received a single dollar. For the first three months after she cut me off, I slept on the streets every night.

I survived by leaning against dumpsters and fighting stray dogs for scraps. That was how I stayed alive!

Bernice shut off her phone in disgust and let out a cold laugh:

"She sent you to pull this sympathy stunt, didn't she!"

Bradley looked at her with something close to pity.

News traveled fast online. Within minutes, a trending topic appeared: #RosemaryDelgado — Disgraced Actress Conspiring with a Serial Killer!

Viewers flooded the livestream to attack me:

"Rosemary Delgado is still as stupid as ever! Teaming up with a murderer to frame our precious Carina!"

"Stupid AND evil. Poor Carina, who knows how much she's suffered all these years!"

Bradley glanced at the live comments and burst out laughing:

"Carina Delgado, kind? Ha! You're the stupid ones! Can't tell good from evil! That woman has every last one of you wrapped around her finger!"

"When I killed Rosemary, she was in her dorm at the village where she'd been volunteer teaching. You want to know what she begged me for? She begged me to kill her quietly. So I wouldn't scare the children."

"I've killed so many people. Every single one of them screamed for help. She was the only one who asked me not to frighten the kids."

"Even I felt something. I was going to make it quick for her. But your saint, your precious Carina Delgado, she paid me to make it hurt. Peeled the skin off her while she was still alive." He clicked his tongue. "How's that for cruel?"

Bernice leaned back into the couch and studied him through narrowed eyes:

"Is this another story the two of you cooked up together? She went through all that trouble to find you just so she could frame Carina?"

Bradley leaned forward, his grin wild and unhinged:

"You don't know? You really don't know that the body you cut apart with your own hands that night was your own daughter? Now that's interesting!"

He laughed again, pitying her:

"Tell you what. If you don't believe me, go to the nearest mountain village and see for yourself. She taught there."

"Inside her memorial grave, there's still one last bone that wasn't fed to the dogs. Along with proof that you dismembered her."

"Mrs. Norris, I can't wait to see your reaction."

After Carina spread lies about me everywhere, I had nowhere left to go. I collapsed near a remote village in the mountains.

The village children were kind. They shared their food with me and gave me a room to sleep in.

I survived by volunteer teaching in the village. Life was hard, but it was better than being hunted at every turn by Carina's schemes.

Spring planting, summer growing. I let the seasons mend me, nurtured myself back from withered to alive.

I never got to see autumn or winter there.

Bradley had spoken with such conviction that the detective squad assembled on-site and began their search.

The moment they entered the village, Bernice grabbed a child at random and asked offhandedly:

"Do you know Rosemary Delgado?"

She didn't believe for a second that I, the "monster" who'd supposedly tormented her younger sister, would have the heart to teach in a place like this.

She didn't expect the child's lip to tremble before the tears came flooding out:

"Mama Rosemary... are you here to get justice for Mama Rosemary?"

"I miss Mama Rosemary so much. She was the best, the very best teacher. Please, officer, please catch the bad people."