My dad’s secret son, hidden for eight years, was finally discovered by my mom. My mom swore she would cut all ties with him, even if it meant walking away from the marriage with absolutely nothing. This time, I stopped her. Because I was reborn. My dad was diagnosed with a terminal illness and was dying. As long as we outlived him, every single cent to his name would belong to me and my mom. 1 "Riley, if Mommy and Daddy split up, do you want to come with Mommy?" When my mom asked me this question again, I didn't hesitate for a single second. I looked her dead in the eye and said, "Mom, don't get a divorce." Her eyes grew red with unshed tears. "Did you know your father has a child out there who is only six months younger than you? How am I supposed to swallow this? If we divorce, at least I won't have to look at him and feel sick. Come with me, okay? You're all I have left." "No, Mom!" "Why?" she asked, her voice trembling. Because I lived this life once already. In my past life, when they divorced, my mom fought desperately for my custody. To get me, she agreed to walk away with nothing. The houses, the cash, the company they built from the ground up—all of it fell into the hands of that mistress and her son. Just two months after the divorce was finalized, my dad died of late-stage stomach cancer. The only reason he let my mom find out about the mistress was because he knew he was dying. He wanted to pave the way for his illegitimate son, but he couldn't bear the thought of my mom taking half his wealth in a standard divorce. So he held my custody hostage. My mom, wanting to protect me, sacrificed the empire she spent years building. The day after the divorce papers were signed, he married the mistress. When he died, that woman and her son legally inherited everything. And then, they hunted my mom and me down. Whatever business my mom tried to start, whatever job she got, they ruined it. Even when she tried to sell trinkets on the street, they hired local thugs to trash her stall. To keep me fed, my mom was forced to work at seedy nightclubs, eventually spiraling into the darkest corners of the sex trade. The mistress tormented her for ten years. Finally, on my eighteenth birthday, my mom jumped from the roof of a 21-story building. After she died, the mistress still wouldn't let me go. She paid kids at my high school to violently bully me. She twisted the truth, telling everyone I was the illegitimate child and that my mother was the homewrecker who ruined her life. I was an orphan with nowhere to turn. One blurry, disorienting night, I was struck and killed by a speeding semi-truck. And the capital that mistress used to destroy us? It was the exact wealth she inherited from my father. In this lifetime, I will protect my mother. I will never let that cheating scumbag win. 2 "Mom, do you believe in prophetic dreams?" I recounted every single horrific event from my past life to her, detail by detail. She muttered to herself in shock, "I would never degrade myself to do that kind of work... and I would never abandon you by taking my own life." I knew that. But when you are pushed to the absolute brink of starvation and despair, who can guarantee they won't grab the only lifeline available, even if it's covered in filth? Because of my dad's betrayal, my mom had been heartbroken and stopped managing their company. My dad was using this exact window of time to pretend he wanted her back, making her think he still loved her. Meanwhile, behind her back, he was rapidly consolidating power, aiming to take full control of the corporation. My mom was skeptical of my "dream," but her love for me ran deep in her bones. Even if it was just a nightmare, she was going to verify it. She went back to the office. That night, when she and my dad came home together, his jaw was clenched. He looked furious. I trotted up to him. "Dad, are you a dirty trash bag?" He choked, his chest heaving as he gasped for air in pure outrage. "People on the internet say men who cheat are just dirty trash bags, and nobody should want them." My mom immediately slapped a hand over my mouth. "Stay off the internet. Don't repeat that garbage you read." I nodded innocently. She let go, and I asked, "Are you and Dad still getting a divorce?" My mom smiled sweetly. "Of course not. I've already forgiven your dad. We're going to live happily as a family of three." My dad's face turned a spectacular shade of purple. He scolded me for a few minutes, skipped dinner, and slammed his bedroom door. My mom's phone buzzed. She was in the shower, so I expertly unlocked her screen. It was the mistress, Vanessa. She was actively trying to provoke my mom, sending a barrage of intimate, disgusting photos of her and my dad in bed. Her texts mocked my mom, goading her to sign the divorce papers immediately. She called my mom a sterile, frigid prude, bragging that my dad preferred her because she was much better in bed. She claimed that she was my dad's true love, and if my maternal grandfather hadn't pressured my dad into marriage, she and my dad would have been the legitimate family all along. I typed a reply for my mom: "I don't believe you. Did you Photoshop these? I remember Richard has a massive mole on his left butt cheek. Your photos don't show it." Vanessa took the bait and immediately sent a highly explicit video. To prove her point and traumatize my mom, she filmed it in high-definition, 360 degrees. The mole on my dad's left cheek was glaringly obvious. It made me want to throw up. Suppressing my nausea, I downloaded the uncensored video and sent it to my own device. After dinner, I opened my laptop and imported the media. I slapped massive, thick mosaic blurs over their private parts and posted it directly to my Facebook and Instagram stories. My caption: "This lady says she’s way better in bed than my mom, and now Dad wants to divorce us! What do I do? Riley doesn't want to grow up without a dad! (Loud Crying Emoji)" I was only nine years old. Posting this kind of stuff wouldn't land me in juvenile detention, right? 3 My dad was trying to play the loving, remorseful husband to my mom, while Vanessa was trying to trigger her into a hasty divorce. They thought they were so incredibly smart. I knew my dad would be angry, but I underestimated his absolute, explosive rage. He slapped me across the face so hard I flew backward. Two of my baby teeth were knocked straight out of my mouth. Good god, it hurt. But compared to the agonizing pain of a semi-truck crushing my bones, this slap was just a light drizzle. My mom screamed and tackled him, clawing wildly at his face. She left deep, bleeding scratch marks all over his cheeks. He looked like a monster. He screamed at me to delete the post. I obediently did. But deleting it was useless. It had been up all night. Who knows how many people screen-recorded it? My mom had dozens of wealthy, gossipy housewives on her friends list. I was confident their ability to spread drama wouldn't disappoint my dad. My dad roared at my mom, "Look at the psychotic daughter you raised!" He slammed the door and left. My mouth was full of blood. My mom was sobbing, trying to drag me to the emergency room. I refused. "Mom, when you're in danger, you call 911." She was heartbroken over my injuries but couldn't stop me as I dragged her directly to the local police precinct. Spitting a mouthful of bloody saliva into a tissue, I walked into the station and finally let out a loud, gut-wrenching wail. With blood staining my lips, I shakily reached out my small hand to a pretty female police officer. In my palm sat the two teeth I had clutched the entire way there. "Officer... Riley wants to report a crime..." My dad had coasted through life on easy mode for years. This was his first time ever sitting in a police interrogation room. And it was for domestic battery against his nine-year-old daughter. He was a prominent, wealthy CEO. He had never experienced this kind of profound humiliation. His face cycled through a rainbow of colors as he sat there with his scratched-up cheeks. My face was swollen to the size of a balloon. The officer explained that my injuries constituted assault. If my mom and I pressed charges, my dad would be facing at least five days in jail, plus fines. Getting him locked up was exactly what I wanted. It bought my mom five crucial days to secure her assets. My dad tried to defend himself by bringing up the explicit video I posted. I immediately pulled out my kid-friendly iPad, opened the blurred video of him and Vanessa, turned the brightness all the way up, and showed it to the entire precinct. "This is the video my dad is talking about. The lady said my dad likes her because she's good in bed, and she said she gave him a son so my mom needs to divorce him quickly. "Even though my dad is a cheating scumbag, Riley doesn't want my parents to divorce. "Riley doesn't want to lose her dad. Riley just wanted the aunties on Facebook to give her advice..." Hitting the emotional climax of my performance, my tears flowed like a broken dam, washing over my swollen, bruised cheeks. If there were a crack in the floor, I'm sure my dad would have shoved his head into it. After a highly uncomfortable silence, the officers gently explained that posting such explicit content online violated platform guidelines. However, since I was a child who didn't know better and had already deleted it, they let me off with a gentle verbal warning. But now, the entire precinct knew about his disgusting infidelity. The officers looked at him with undisguised contempt. Because my mom and I adamantly refused to drop the charges, and the physical evidence was right there on my face, my dad was hauled off to spend five days singing the blues in a holding cell. 4 Trading two baby teeth for five days of uninterrupted time for my mom was the best deal I ever made. Now wasn't the time to coddle me. After seeing the dentist, I pushed my mom to go straight to the corporate headquarters. I warned her that several key managerial positions were occupied by Vanessa's relatives. My mom didn't waste a second. She hired two towering, intimidating female bodyguards to watch over me, then rushed to the office to clean house. My dad was the classic definition of a gold-digger. He grew up in absolute poverty, raised by a widowed mother who worked herself to the bone to put him through college. My mom's family wasn't exceptionally wealthy, but my grandfather was a respected academic who owned a nice house in the city. After my parents graduated and got married, my grandfather sold that house to give them their startup capital. Using that seed money, they grew a tiny two-person operation into a massive tech manufacturing firm worth nearly a hundred million dollars today. My mom was brilliant. She handled the complex operational side of the business flawlessly. But her fatal flaw was her bleeding heart. In my past life, my dad manipulated her empathy, guilt-tripping her into walking away with nothing. She genuinely believed she could just start over from scratch. But the world is cruel. Dragging me along as a single mother, while Vanessa used my dad's wealth to actively hunt and destroy her... Forget starting a business. We barely had enough to eat. Children are almost always a mother's greatest weakness. If it weren't for wanting to secure my custody, my mom never would have surrendered her life's work. I refused to let history repeat itself. This time, I was the one protecting her! 5 Those five days in a cell must have made my dad hate us to his core. When he was released, he didn't even bother coming home. He moved straight into the luxury mansion he had bought for Vanessa and his son. Because of the video I posted, he was the laughingstock of his own company. My mom said that on his first day back in the office, he looked like a zoo animal. Employees stared at him, whispering in the hallways. Some of the older, no-nonsense female managers even rolled their eyes and muttered curses as he walked past. Having just gotten out of jail only to face this humiliation, he exploded in a rage, threatening to fire everyone. Naturally, my mom stepped in and vetoed his orders. Discovering that my mom had already fired all of Vanessa's relatives, my dad had a screaming match with her in the boardroom. The mask was completely off. He knew playing the "remorseful husband" wasn't going to trick her into leaving empty-handed anymore. He offered a standard 50/50 split of the assets if she agreed to an uncontested divorce. But my mom had already spoken to his private doctor. She knew about his cancer. She knew that even if he underwent surgery, he didn't have much time left. She absolutely refused to divorce him. These facts validated everything I told her in my "dream." She would never trust him again. My dad knew his clock was ticking. He couldn't afford to drag this out for years. But since my mom refused to sign, he had to file a contested divorce lawsuit. In court, my mom held my hand and wept beautifully to the judge. "Your Honor, even though he made a mistake, my daughter and I are willing to forgive him. We've built a life together. I won't abandon our marriage just because he strayed once. "They say you should always try to save a family. I beg the court to dismiss his petition." I cried on cue. "Daddy, please don't leave Riley!" My dad looked like he wanted to vomit. He couldn't produce any evidence of irreconcilable differences, and his affair with Vanessa only proved he was a cheating scumbag, not that my mom was at fault. And yet, my mom and I were publicly declaring our willingness to forgive him. My mom showcased her saint-like capacity for forgiveness, begging him to return to our loving home. After months of legal delays, his first divorce petition was dismissed by the judge. If he wanted to file again, he had to wait a mandatory six months. Unfortunately for him, he didn't have six months to spare. 6 My mom told me my dad was secretly siphoning funds out of the company accounts. He was preparing a nest egg for Vanessa and his son. He was terrified that if he died while still married to my mom, Vanessa would get nothing. He even secretly drafted a will, attempting to leave his half of the corporate shares to his illegitimate son. I asked my mom anxiously, "Why aren't you stopping him?" She told me not to worry. She said she was tracking every penny and building a legal case, and she absolutely wouldn't let strangers steal what belonged to us. I had told my mom every horrifying detail of our past lives. She wasn't blinded by love anymore. I trusted her competence implicitly. My mom and I suffered far too much in the past. I wasn't being heartless; I just refused to give a single cent to that homewrecking duo. My dad's actions were truly despicable. He refused to come home, so I had to go to his and Vanessa's love nest to find him. I knew exactly where they lived. He had set them up in one of the most exclusive, gated communities in the city. I had been there in my past life too. But back then, I went to beg. I had kneeled on the concrete driveway outside their mansion, pleading with Vanessa to show mercy and let my mom live. Instead, she kicked me to the ground. She ground the stiletto heel of her designer shoe into my cheek, smiling radiantly. "This is karma," she said. "Your mother was a shameless bitch who got in the way of our true love." The heel dug into my flesh until I bled. The neighbors who gathered to watch spat on me, calling me a bastard child. She promised that if I knelt and bowed my head, she'd let my mom go. I actually did it. But she just laughed louder, clutching her son's shoulder as she shook with amusement. That plain, unremarkable face of hers made me want to violently throw up. But today, I was here to collect some interest on that debt. 7 Flanked by my towering female bodyguards, I held up a photo of my dad and Vanessa, asking every neighbor I saw until I found their house. The front gates were wide open. The woman who had strutted triumphantly over my bleeding face in my past life was currently watering the rosebushes in the front yard with her son. A picture of perfect, suburban peace. "Auntie Vanessa." Vanessa froze the second she saw me. When she noticed the crowd of wealthy, gossip-hungry housewives gathering behind me, sheer panic washed over her face. "Tsk, tsk. I always wondered why her 'husband' was never home. She told me he was a busy CEO always flying first class. Turns out she's just a dirty mistress. How shameless!" "She acts so sweet and polite in the neighborhood. Who knew she was such garbage behind closed doors?" "You really can't judge a book by its cover. I'm telling my kids to stay far away from her son." The whispers snapped Vanessa out of her shock. She pretended she didn't know me, insisting I had the wrong house. She was trying to gaslight me in broad daylight. But I had already shown the photos to everyone. No one believed her. As the neighbors' comments grew more hostile, she lost her temper and yelled at us to get off her property. I aggressively wiped at my eyes, turning on the waterworks. "Auntie Vanessa, please don't make my daddy divorce my mommy! "If you just leave him alone, I'll give you all my money! Don't you just like my dad for his money? I have a lot of allowance saved up!" I dramatically slammed the porcelain piggy bank I brought with me onto the driveway. It shattered, sending quarters and dollar bills scattering across the pavement. I dropped to my knees, frantically scooping them up and shoving them toward her. The crowd's disgust toward her reached a boiling point. Her son, Tyler, charged at me, raising his fists. I immediately grabbed his ear and twisted it hard. He shrieked in pain. Vanessa tried to rush me, but my bodyguards easily pinned her arms behind her back. I cried while cursing, and while cursing, I kicked, scratched, and pinched. Like a feral animal, I unleashed every ounce of my pent-up rage directly onto Tyler. "If it wasn't for you, my dad wouldn't abandon me! You stole my dad! It's your fault! It's all your fault!" Girls hit their growth spurts earlier. Tyler was half a head shorter than me and stood absolutely no chance. I beat him until he was wailing on the ground. He wasn't my brother. He was a demon. He and his vile mother stole everything from us and then sadistically tortured us for fun. In my past life, as he grew older, he paid kids at my high school to spread rumors that my mom was a deranged stalker who ruined his parents' lives. He orchestrated having me locked in bathroom stalls, my textbooks shredded, and my assignments destroyed. He even had thugs throw garbage water on me while I walked home. He was rotten to his very core. I wasn't going to let him off the hook just because he was a "kid." 8 By the time my dad rushed home, Tyler's face was bruised and battered. Vanessa clutched her son, weeping beautifully. My dad raised his hand, furious, intending to strike me. My bodyguards immediately stepped in front of me, glaring at him, fists clenched, ready to drop him if he moved an inch. I poked my head between their shoulders and craned my neck toward him. "If you want to go back to a jail cell, hit me! Do it! Kill me right now!" "You knocked out two of my teeth last time! Are you trying to do it again?!" "I'm just trying to protect my family! What did I do wrong?! You have no shame, cheating on my mom! I have the worst luck in the world having a father like you!" There were too many people watching. We were surrounded. They chattered endlessly, condemning Vanessa and my dad's disgusting behavior. The very people they had tried to impress in this neighborhood were now publicly shaming them. My words struck my dad's fragile ego so hard he clutched his chest, swaying dizzily. Finally, his eyes rolled back, and he collapsed face-first into the rosebushes. I didn't expect him to be this fragile. He literally passed out from anger. I immediately cried and screamed, dialing 911. When the ambulance arrived, Vanessa tried to climb in with her bruised son. I forcefully shoved her out the back doors. My dad's extreme surge of anger triggered a cascade of severe medical complications. He was admitted to the hospital immediately. His cancer had spread aggressively. The doctor said that if he didn't have surgery immediately, he wouldn't even survive the month. If he opted for the surgery, there was a 30% survival rate. And even if it was successful, it would only buy him six months to a year. When my dad woke up, the first thing he saw was me. He opened his mouth to curse me, but my mom instantly slapped him hard across the face. "Since you're already bedridden, shut your mouth and behave!" My dad's eyes nearly popped out of his skull in rage, but he was so weak he couldn't even walk without gasping for air. How could he fight my mom? I pinned his shoulders to the mattress, relayed the doctor's exact words, and asked him what he wanted to do. I have no idea if he got the surgery in my past life, but he died shortly after regardless. His face turned an ashen, deathly gray. He was clearly terrified. But what did that have to do with me and my mom? Whatever he chose, he wasn't escaping the grim reaper. 9 He ultimately chose the surgery. I wasn't surprised. A coward like him would cling to even a 1% chance of survival. His mother had passed away long ago, leaving me and my mom as his only legal next of kin. My mom signed the surgical consent forms. Before the operation, he demanded to see Vanessa and Tyler one last time. My mom adamantly refused. He demanded his phone to call them, but my mom had confiscated it. He cursed and screamed, throwing everything he could reach off his bedside table. I grabbed my mom's hand. "If he wants them here so badly, let them come." My mom didn't understand. She just found the sight of them nauseating. But seeing my insistence, she agreed. Vanessa brought Tyler to the hospital, throwing herself onto his chest and weeping loudly. Just as she was mid-sob, the attending doctor led a group of nurses in for morning rounds. I proactively introduced Vanessa's identity to the entire medical staff. Under the judgmental stares of a dozen professionals, Vanessa's pale, delicate "innocent" face flushed bright red with extreme embarrassment. Especially since the illegitimate son standing next to her looked almost my exact age. My dad's face was equally horrifying to look at. The reputation and dignity he had spent a lifetime building were completely annihilated. I looked at the doctors with teary, red eyes. "Even though my dad did terrible, unforgivable things, Riley doesn't want him to die. Please, doctors, you have to save him." My dad looked like he wanted to die on the spot. But this was only the beginning. My mom contacted several senior executives and board members from the company to "visit" him. As soon as the doctors left, the executives filed in. Vanessa grabbed Tyler, desperate to flee, but my bodyguards blocked the door. "Since Dad wanted you here so badly, you're going to stay and let everyone get a good look at you." After the corporate team left, it was his old classmates. Elementary school, middle school, high school, college. Anyone my mom could dig up from his past, she invited. Wave after wave of visitors poured in. And every single time, my mom politely and thoroughly introduced Vanessa and her son to the room. My dad was stripped of his dignity down to his very bones. Social death in its purest form. Vanessa fared no better, and her son Tyler shrank into the corner, hiding his face in shame. My mom calmly unscrewed her thermos and took a sip of tea. "We have a few distant relatives back in our hometown. If you'd like, I can have Vanessa bring the boy to meet them tomorrow too." My dad weakly croaked for Vanessa and Tyler to get the hell out.
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