Chapter 3Money Is The Only Loyal Love

The doctors opted for a bone marrow biopsy and stem cell harvest.

The operating room was freezing.

Even through the anesthesia, I felt the pain. An insidious, deep ache.

That was the first time I cried since I came back to the Prescotts.

I missed my mother.

I wanted to ask her why it hurt so much.

Remy’s recovery went smoothly enough.

Alistair’s attitude toward me softened slightly. He even enrolled me in the same elite private school as Sierra.

But even though I had saved her brother's life, she still hated me.

The news of my illegitimate status spread through the school instantly.

Sierra led the charge to isolate me.

My freshman year was a cycle of finding spiders in my desk, razor blades in my water bottle, and the constant threat of a burnt scalp from a hurled curling iron or a stapler puncture.

I was hit, cursed, threatened, and shunned.

Whether I was drenched in cold water or locked in the storage closet for the night, I always faced them with a smile.

I never told on them. I certainly never cried.

I started eating all the heaviest, unhealthiest food I could find.

I gained weight, my face broke out with teenage acne, and I wore the baggiest, most shapeless clothes. I was utterly, deliberately forgettable.

My mother had taught me: When you are dull and without light, fewer people will bother to look your way.

After a while, my complete lack of resistance bored Sierra.

She stopped constantly monitoring me.

I finally got the breathing room I needed to study.

I kept my grades consistently low, always positioning myself at the bottom of the class roster to act as a buffer for Sierra's terrible scores.

In the second half of sophomore year, Remy’s rejection symptoms became severe.

I went in for another bone marrow harvest.

It was more painful than the last time.

I clenched my jaw, refusing to let a single sound escape. Crying is a currency, and I had already spent mine long ago.

After that procedure, I was moved into a small, independent room.

It had the worst light in the entire villa, but for the first time, I had a space that was just mine.

Mrs. Lewis secretly made me a dish of liver—good for the blood.

She watched me eat, then turned her back to discreetly wipe away tears. Having shared a room with me for over a year, she knew exactly how often I came back with new bruises.

Her initial disgust for the "bastard child" had transformed into pity.

She once asked me, Don’t you resent them?

I offered her a silent, weary smile.

After you’ve walked too many helpless miles alone, resentment simply turns into calculation.