My mother married the old bachelor, and seven months later, I was born full-term.

She was the village disgrace. Notorious for it.

To raise me, she let the old bachelor send her to the beds of other men.

She scraped and suffered to put me through school.

But I skipped class, picked fights, and raised hell at every turn.

The neighbor's kid threw a rock at me. I broke his leg.

My uncle's son called me a bastard. I kicked him between the legs hard enough to end his bloodline.

The old bachelor put his hands on me. I cracked his skull open with a brick.

Every time I caused trouble, people came to our door.

My mother would drop to her knees in front of them, slamming her forehead against the ground until blood ran down her face, begging them to let me go.

They'd beat her half to death, but she'd still hold me tight against her chest, crying, pleading with me:

"Margot Hayward, I'm begging you, please stop fighting. Please."

"I'm afraid one day I won't be able to protect you anymore..."

I thought she was nagging. So I gave in, grudgingly, and promised I wouldn't raise my hand again.

Then, when I was eighteen, the wealthiest family in the city sent someone to take my mother away.

They said she was their real daughter, swapped at birth by the nanny.

A month later, she was sent back.

When I saw her body, not a single patch of skin left unbroken, I trembled with excitement.

She was dead.

Finally, no one could tell me what to do.

...

My mother's corpse was wrapped in a white sheet and dumped in the uneven dirt of our yard.

The dried blood on the fabric had turned black, making the savage scars across her body even more grotesque.

The one who brought her back was the Harding family's butler.

He wore an expensive suit, pinched his nose, and cast a look of disgust at the body on the ground.

Then he lifted his chin and looked me over, head to toe.

Like I was something filthy.

According to him, my mother had sticky fingers. She stole things. Worse, she was jealous of the fake heiress, tried to take her room, and abused the fake heiress's daughter.

She'd even cut up the fake heiress's clothes, poisoned her food, and tried to push her down the stairs.

In the end, she got what she deserved and fell to her death herself.

The Hardings were ashamed of her. They refused to acknowledge her as one of their own.

Her body wouldn't even be allowed into the family cemetery.

But they were generous people. They pitied me and were willing to take this little bastard back to the Harding estate out of the goodness of their hearts.

I stared at the body on the ground.

Her face had rotted beyond recognition.

A month ago, when they came to take her, she'd held my hand and wept with joy.

She told me that once she'd settled in with her real parents, she'd send for me. After that, no one would ever bully me again.

She was going to watch me study, get into a good college, land a good job, marry a good man, and live a happy life.

Too bad. She was a cold corpse now,

and she'd never see any of it.

I didn't say a word.

I grabbed the iron shovel, dug a hole behind the house, hoisted her thin, small body over my shoulder, and threw her in.

Like burying a dead dog.

Not even a coffin.

When I got in the car to leave, the butler started lecturing me, his finger jabbing so close it nearly touched my forehead:

"You're nothing but a bastard born to a cheap woman. Don't go dreaming about things that don't belong to you."

"Miss Caroline is kind enough to bring you back. You should be grateful."

"When you see Miss Caroline, you bow and greet her properly. Know your place..."

"..."

God, he was loud.

I dug a finger in my ear, then grabbed the finger he was pointing at me and snapped it. One clean crack. Then I punched his two front teeth out.

My worn-out shoe pressed into his face, and my voice was ice cold:

"I don't care whose dog you are."

"In front of me, I'm the master and you're the mutt."

The moment I stepped into the Hardings' gilded mansion,

a glass shattered at my feet.

Scalding water splashed across my ankles.

"You insolent brat! Get on your knees!"

I lifted my gaze to the man screaming at me.

Around sixty years old. My mother's biological father, Max Harding.

A middle-aged woman dabbed at her eyes, her voice trembling with practiced hurt:

"Dad, please don't be angry!"

"I know my sister hated me for taking her place, so the moment she came back, she wanted me dead."

"But Margot is her only daughter. Your own granddaughter by blood."

"Even if she beat up the butler and threatened to kill me and my daughter, I won't hold it against her."

"If it makes her happy, my daughter and I will leave the Harding family right now and give Margot our place!"

She made a show of turning to leave. Max grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

"The mix-up at birth wasn't your fault!"

"The title of Harding heiress isn't something any stray off the street can claim!"

So this was her. The fake heiress who'd stolen my mother's identity for thirty-eight years. Caroline Harding.

The Harding family butler was this woman's lapdog.

Our eyes met.

Those upturned, fox-like eyes, identical to her birth mother's.

Revolting.

She did have some self-awareness, though. I absolutely intended to destroy her and her daughter.

I studied her, and my gaze settled on her hands. Adorned with expensive jewelry, the skin pale and pampered smooth.

I counted silently.

.

Ten fingers. Every single one intact.

Not like my mother's.

My mother's palms had been covered in thick calluses from years of hard labor.

The backs of her hands had been covered in scars from cigarette burns.

Three fingers on her left hand had been hacked off. Two on her right had been beaten so crooked she couldn't even hold a pair of chopsticks steady.

I licked my lips, excitement buzzing through me. I wondered if fingers that soft and white would make an even crisper sound when they snapped.

That was when Caroline leaned in close and dropped her voice, taunting me with a smug little smile:

"You cheap little tramp. So what if you've got Harding blood?"

"You're just like your worthless mother. Born trash. You both deserve to spend your whole lives under my heel."

She reached for my hand, pretending to take it in a show of affection, but her nails dug into my skin.

Every cell in my body screamed with excitement.

I seized that soft, pampered hand and split my lips into a grin.

The next second, I locked my grip around her fingers and snapped them. One by one.

I closed my eyes and savored it. The crisp crack of each breaking finger, her agonized screams layered on top. Like a symphony. Every note sent a wave of pure satisfaction through my bones.

Ten fingers broken. I tossed her onto the floor like a dead dog.

I pulled out my phone and hit play.

Her taunting words from moments ago blasted through the entire hall of the mansion.

I looked at Max Harding, his face contorted with rage, and let out a cold laugh.

"Old man. If I'm a cheap little tramp because I've got your blood, then what does that make you? A cheap old bastard?"

I ground my heel into Caroline's broken fingers and smiled, all teeth.

"And this cuckoo in the nest, this nanny's daughter living off someone else's name, what breed of trash does that make her?"

Max's face cycled between green and white. He gasped for air, clutching his chest, and collapsed back onto the sofa.

His hand shook as he pointed at me, cursing me as an animal, an abomination, swearing he'd have me beaten to death.

On his command, a squad of bodyguards stormed in and surrounded me.

Then a delicate, syrupy voice rang out.

The girl who appeared looked about my age, wearing some kind of princess dress I'd never seen before.

But her complexion was sallow. Sickly at a glance.

Caroline's daughter. Lindsay Harding.

She was supporting an elderly woman by the arm. I recognized her instantly. My mother's birth mother.

Because they looked exactly alike.

Madeline Harding's eyes lit up the moment she saw me.

Something flickered behind his eyes, like a thought catching up to him. Then came the disappointment, cold and total. He didn't look at me again.

My mother had believed the Hardings came for her out of love. Out of blood.

She was naive. I wasn't.

A family like the Hardings ran full medical panels every year.

How could they possibly go thirty-eight years without discovering the daughter raised under their roof wasn't theirs?

They'd lost her for thirty-eight years and never once came looking.

When they finally did, there had to be a reason they didn't want anyone to know.

My gaze settled on the sickly girl. Cold. Assessing.

She was the reason.

Lindsay helped Caroline to her feet, the older woman still whimpering in agony.

Then Lindsay dropped to her knees in front of Max, tears streaming down her face like rain on cherry blossoms:

"Grandpa, she just lost her mother. She's hurting. She wants someone to take it out on, and that's understandable. Please don't blame her!"

"After all, Mom and I are the ones who took her mother's and her aunt's place all these years. We deserve this."

"Please don't hit her. If you have to hit someone, hit me!"

"Just please, don't make yourself sick over this!"

While she spoke, she gave Caroline's sleeve a subtle tug.

Caroline caught the signal, shot me one last venomous glare, then gritted her teeth and joined in begging for mercy on my behalf.

She even slipped in, between the lines, that the recording I'd played was fabricated. That I'd framed her.

Max swallowed every word. He rushed to pull Lindsay up, his face crumpling with tenderness:

"You sweet girl. Always too kind for your own good, begging for someone like her."

"Grandpa would never lay a hand on you!"

"Your kidneys are weak. You should be resting, not coming downstairs."

I caught the key phrase: kidneys are weak.

Everything clicked into place.

My mother's kidneys hadn't been a match. So she died.

Mine were. So they brought me here.

Max waved his hand, signaling the bodyguards to seize me:

"Grab this feral animal and hold her down! She's going to kneel before the young miss and bow until her forehead bleeds!"

"Then throw her in the basement. No food. Let her think about what she's done!"

At his command, the bodyguards cracked their knuckles and lunged.

I rolled my neck. Every cell in my body was screaming with anticipation.

What they didn't know was that I'd been diagnosed with a severe psychiatric condition. Antisocial personality disorder, compounded by violent tendencies.

Without my mother nagging me to behave, I didn't have to hold back anymore.

It was over fast. The smugness drained from their faces, replaced by disbelief, then horror.

The bodyguards lay crumpled on the floor with broken hands and shattered legs, sobbing and howling.

I'd taken hits too, but I couldn't feel a thing.

I licked the blood from the corner of my mouth, grabbed Caroline by the hair with one hand and closed the other around Lindsay's throat.

One kick sent them both crashing to their knees in front of me. I shoved their heads down, forcing them to kowtow over and over.

Anyone who made a sound got slapped.

Max's lips turned purple. He clutched his chest, his heart condition flaring.

Madeline's face twisted with anguish. She raised her cane and swung it at me.

"Stop it! Stop it this instant!"

"The apple doesn't fall far from the tree! You're as vicious as your mother. You dare lay hands on my precious daughter and granddaughter right in front of me!"

"I'll do what your mother should have done and beat some sense into you, you wild little wretch!"

I snatched the cane out of the air an inch before it cracked my skull. Madeline lost her balance and collapsed onto the floor.

I turned the cane around and brought it down hard across Caroline's back.

The bruise it left was identical to the marks on my mother's corpse.

I scoffed, then pressed the tip of the cane against Madeline's sternum, looming over her:

"You miserable old hag."

"When my mother came back, is this the same cane you used to 'teach her a lesson'?"

Madeline froze. Something complicated passed across her face:

"Your mother was vicious. She picked up all sorts of filthy habits out there, and the moment she came home she started bullying Caroline and Lindsay."