My curse has never once been wrong. When I speak misfortune into someone, not even God can stop it. I was five years old when a trafficker grew tired of my crying and beat me half to death. I stared up at him through the blood running into my eyes. "You'll be crushed flat by a truck." The words had barely left my mouth when a runaway semi plowed through the yard and turned him into something that couldn't be pieced back together. Later, at the group home, the director skimmed the food budget and locked me in a storage closet when I complained. I told him he'd choke to death on his own greed. That same afternoon, he died at the lunch table — a chunk of meat lodged in his throat while he was eating the good stuff he'd bought with our money. After that, I became the monster everyone avoided. I learned to keep my mouth shut. I kept it shut even after the Holts found me and brought me home. Dad arranged for me to join the family company. I'd only made it through one day when I pushed open the front door and found Nora Blake, the girl who'd been living my life for twenty years, sobbing in Nathan Cole's arms. "Does Rhea hate me?" she whimpered. "She's been telling people at the office that I slept with Mr. Stratton to land the Westside Project. That I came back with diseases. That I'm—" Mom crossed the room and slapped me across the face. "Nora is a decent girl. How dare you drag her name through the mud like this?" Dad pointed at me, his voice shaking with rage. "This is what happens when you raise a child in the gutter. Jealousy and filth. Get to your room. You don't come out until I say so." I pressed my hand to my stinging cheek and looked at the satisfaction glinting in Nora's eyes. I let out a slow, cold laugh. Me — spread rumors? Fine. If I'm carrying the blame either way, you'd better be ready for what happens when I actually open my mouth. --- "Mom, Dad, Rhea's still smiling," Nora murmured, pressing herself deeper into Nathan's chest, her shoulders trembling. "Look at her." Mom's face went red. She grabbed a glass of water off the table and threw it in my face. "You blight on this family! I never should have brought you back!" "We pulled you out of nothing, gave you everything — and you repay us by destroying your sister's reputation!" "What kind of person are you?" I locked my jaw so hard I tasted blood. Nathan rubbed Nora's back with one hand and looked at me like I was something scraped off the bottom of his shoe. "Rhea. I've said it before — a girl like you doesn't belong in the Holt family. You sure as hell don't belong on my arm." "The only reason I ever agreed to this engagement was because Nora kept asking me to give you a chance." "Get on your knees and apologize to her. Or I end this engagement right now." I dropped my gaze to the puddle of water spreading across the floor and said nothing. My curse has never been wrong. Not once. In the six months since the Holts brought me home, they gave me something I'd never had — the feeling of being wanted. Mom sat up through the night when I had a fever, pressing a cool cloth to my forehead. Dad burned three batches of food trying to cook for me, then beamed when he finally managed a decent pork chop and set the first piece on my plate. My brother Blake, who had sworn he'd never accept me, started quietly tucking snacks into my bag when he thought I wasn't looking. Mom would cup my face in her hands, eyes wet, and say the last twenty years must have been so hard. Dad would call for the car and ride with me to the office himself, telling me to build connections, learn the business — that someday all of it would be mine. I kept my mouth sealed to hold onto even that small, fragile warmth. I was terrified that if I spoke the wrong words, I'd take them from myself. But Nora caught the look on my face and cried harder. "She thinks if she stays quiet, she can just wait it out, doesn't she?" "She destroyed my reputation. People at the office look at me differently now. How am I supposed to survive in this industry?" Nathan grabbed the thin silver chain at my throat, the one with the christening charm I'd worn since birth, and ripped it free. The skin burned. The clasp snapped. That charm was the reason Mom recognized me. She'd clasped it around my neck herself the day I was born. Twenty-something years of hoping I'd come home safe. "Give it back." I lunged for it. Nathan shoved me to the ground. Right there in front of me, he fastened the charm around Nora's neck. "Something this precious deserves to be worn by someone pure," he said, his eyes sliding over me with contempt. "A girl like Nora — kind, clean, worth something." "You?" He let out a short, disgusted laugh. "You're a foul-mouthed nobody. You'd taint it just by touching it." Blake came thundering down the stairs, his face dark, and grabbed me by the collar before I'd taken another breath. "I said from day one we never should have brought you here!" he snarled, his grip twisting the fabric at my throat. "You know who begged me to give you a chance?" "Nora. She's the one who asked me to treat you like family. She gave up her own bedroom for you, do you understand that?" "Every good thing in this house — she handed it to you first. Every single time." His lip curled. "And this is what you are. A damn snake we pulled out of the dirt and warmed up, and you bit us the second you got the chance." He wrenched his hand away and wheeled toward the door. "Someone get the house manager up here right now!" he bellowed. "Lock her up — I don't care how long it takes." "Nobody brings her so much as a glass of water without mine or my parents' permission. Nobody." Two guards were on me in seconds, wrenching my arms behind my back, and dragged me up the stairs.
They kept me in that room for seven days. Once a night, the housekeeper slid a bowl through the door. Leftovers. Cold by the time they reached me. Outside, the house rang with laughter. The Holt family, complete and content. Nora made a point of standing just outside my door with Nathan, her voice honeyed and just loud enough to reach me through the gap. "Nathan, this necklace is too expensive. You should give it to Rhea." "I know you love me. But she's their real daughter." "Maybe we should just… stop. I can stand back and watch you be happy from a distance—" She let her voice crack on the last word. "Even if it breaks me. It would still be worth it." Nathan pulled her close and kicked my door hard enough to rattle the frame. "Don't talk nonsense," Nathan said, his voice dripping with disdain. "That girl we dragged in from nowhere isn't fit to carry your shoes." "Honestly, every time I look at her, it turns my stomach. What right does she have to wear anything that costs real money?" "Don't worry. Even if I go through with the marriage, I won't touch her. Not once. You're the only one, Nora. That will never change." I sat with my back against the door and listened to the two of them perform their devotion for me. I dragged my cracked lips into a smile. "Sleeping in a necklace that heavy," I said quietly. "Hope she doesn't wake up with a stiff neck." The next morning, Nora's scream split the hallway. "Ow — it hurts — Blake, I can't move my neck!" Then Blake's voice, tight with panic, stumbling over reassurances. The housekeeper's quick footsteps. Someone calling for ice. I sat still and listened to the chaos outside my door. Slowly, I closed my eyes. The smile on my face kept growing. --- On the eighth day, the lock finally turned. Nora stood in the doorway, chin lifted. "Look at you. You're a mess." She clicked her tongue. "Come on. Mom and Dad want you downstairs. We're going to the office." "All you have to do is stand in front of everyone and clear my name. One apology. Then we move on." I got up and walked out. I was almost at the top of the stairs when Nora stepped close and put her lips near my ear. "You grew up with nothing and came crawling into my family. Did you really think you could take my parents? My man?" Her voice was silk over gravel. "Know your place." I stopped. Before I could say a single word, Nora let out a piercing shriek. "Rhea, don't — I'm not trying to take the inheritance, I swear—!" She threw herself backward and tumbled down the staircase. "Nora!" Nathan was at the bottom in seconds. Blake. Mom. Dad. Nora collapsed against Nathan's chest, tears streaming. "Don't blame Rhea," she gasped. "I lost my footing. It was an accident." Blake's eyes were red when he looked up at me. "You've lived in this house for over twenty years and never once slipped on those stairs," Blake said, his voice cracking. "Don't stand there and tell me that was an accident." Mom came up the stairs two steps at a time and hit me across the face — twice, hard, open-palmed. I'd had nothing but scraps for seven days. The force of it sent me straight to the floor. The hallway tilted. My ears rang. Dad stood at the bottom of the staircase and pointed up at me, his voice breaking with rage. "How did this family produce something like you? What kind of person does this to someone who took her in?" I pressed my hand to my face and looked down at all of them. There was a hollow in my chest where something used to be. Just cold air moving through an empty space. I pulled the corner of my mouth up. "If I had actually wanted to hurt her," I said, "I wouldn't have needed to be in the same room." Blake's whole body shook. He turned and kicked the hall table hard enough to send it crashing into the wall. "Did you hear that?" he shouted at our parents, his voice raw. "Are you listening to her?" "Nora's lying in Nathan's arms half-conscious and she's standing there acting like the victim!" Nathan held Nora against him and stared at me with murder in his eyes. "You are unbelievable. No remorse. Not one word of it." Dad turned his face away like the sight of me disgusted him. "Take her back upstairs. Lock the door." I pulled against the guards' grip and laughed once, short and cold. "Keep performing like that and she might actually break something. Then you'll have a real problem." Nora, who had been fake-crying beautifully in Nathan's arms, went suddenly still. Her head dropped. Mom screamed. "Nathan — the car, now! Hospital!" Nathan scooped Nora up and ran. Mom and Dad and Blake scrambled after him. The courtyard filled with engine noise. Then they were gone. The guards threw me back in my room.
A few days later, Nora was discharged. Mom and Dad loaded me into the car and drove me to the office. The lobby — usually all clean lines and quiet professionalism — was packed. Every employee in the building had been called down. The LED screen at the center of the room looped two videos on repeat. The first showed Nora on a volunteer trip, handing out school supplies to kids in a rural county. The second showed her at the office past midnight, surrounded by Westside Project files. Dad took the microphone and stepped up to the front. "I owe each of you an explanation. The Holt family made the mistake of bringing back a young woman with no character and no gratitude." "Out of jealousy, she spread vile rumors about Nora throughout this company." "She has damaged our reputation and disgraced this family." Mom stood beside him dabbing her eyes, every inch the wounded mother. The murmuring started immediately. "Rags to riches and rotten underneath — what a surprise." "Heard she grew up rough. People like that, you can never trust them around nice things." "She'd slander her own sister. What wouldn't she do?" The voices crashed over me from every direction. Nora let Nathan guide her forward until she was standing directly in front of me. She was holding a single sheet of paper — Statement of Confession and Apology printed across the top in clean, official type. "I know why you did it, Rhea." "Sign this, clear my name properly, and get on your knees and apologize in front of everyone. Do that, and I'll forgive you." I stared at her face. That carefully arranged expression of wounded generosity. My chest was heaving. "I never said any of those things," I said. "And if I had actually said you slept with—" Nathan's foot drove into the back of my knee. My legs folded. Both knees hit the marble floor at once. The pain detonated up through my joints and exploded along every nerve in my body. Cold sweat soaked through my shirt before I'd drawn another breath. Laughter broke out across the lobby. Phones rose. Flashes went off in my face. Around me, people laughed. Phones came out. Cameras flashed. "Serves her right." The humiliation moved through me like something physical — slow, corrosive, thorough. And then, from somewhere in the crowd, a voice cut through everything. "She didn't spread those rumors. I was there. I can prove it." The room went silent. Every head turned. It was Casey — the intern I'd found crying in the break room on my first day, after her supervisor had torn into her in front of the whole floor. I'd sat with her for ten minutes. Brought her a coffee. Told her she'd done nothing wrong. She pushed through the crowd and planted herself in front of me, facing Nora. "I was working late that night." Her voice shook but held. "I saw Ms. Blake get into Mr. Stratton's car in the parking garage. I saw what happened in the back seat. I recorded it." The lobby went airless. The color drained from Nora's face. Then she turned it around in two seconds flat, spinning toward Nathan, burying her face in his collar. "How much did Rhea pay her?" she sobbed. "She couldn't spread enough lies herself, so she hired someone?" "I can't do this anymore. I don't want to live like this." The crowd's shock curdled back into contempt. Nathan stepped forward and backhanded Casey across the face before she could say another word. She stumbled and went down hard. Blood at the corner of her mouth. I pulled against the guards holding me. "Stop—" "Get her out of this building," Dad said into the microphone. "Terminate her contract. Blacklist her across the industry." Four security guards moved in. Casey curled on the floor with her arms over her head while they hit her. Her cries got quieter. Then quieter still.
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