Chapter 3Pretending Foolery in Wealth

I spent my days sleeping until noon. I would wander downstairs to eat the gourmet breakfasts Martha prepared, then collapse onto the velvet sofa to scroll through social media and watch mind-numbing reality shows. I booked expensive private manicurists to come to the house, and mountains of designer shopping bags piled up in the foyer.

Evelyn and Rose watched me rot on the couch, their eyes growing more relaxed by the day.

"Look at her," Rose sneered one afternoon, stepping over a pile of my discarded fashion magazines. She did not even bother to lower her voice. "She dropped out of her prep school because she said reading gave her a headache. She is completely useless."

Evelyn took a slow sip of her black coffee, a satisfied smirk on her lips. "Useless is good. Useless means she will not cause us any trouble."

I popped a fresh strawberry into my mouth, my eyes glued to the television screen, giggling loudly at the show.

But I kept a mental receipt of every single thing they did.

Shortly after my father passed, his most trusted executives had secretly reached out to me. Every single quarter, I quietly reviewed the company's confidential financial reports. Evelyn thought keeping the official documents locked in my father's study was enough to keep me out, but she had no idea my father had told me exactly where the hidden spare key was.

A few days after my seventeenth birthday, Rose walked through the front doors with a stylish stranger.

Evelyn practically floated down the stairs to greet them, taking the woman's hand affectionately before turning to me. "Sweetie, this is Rose's best friend. She just moved back from the UK. She is a genius with money."

The woman flashed me a brilliant, over-rehearsed smile, reaching out a hand with perfectly painted crimson nails. "Just call me Amy."

I tilted my head, looking at her with wide, empty eyes. "Hi, Amy."

Amy's smile widened, but I caught the brief, unmistakable flash of superiority in her eyes.

A week later, Evelyn walked into my bedroom, her eyes artificially reddened with fake tears.

She sat on the edge of my bed, pulling a thick leather binder into her lap. She grabbed my hand, her voice trembling just the right amount. "Sweetie, the company accounts your father left behind are an absolute mess. I simply cannot manage them all by myself. This is the ledger from last year. Just take a look and sign your name at the bottom to show you acknowledge it."

"Do I really have to read all this boring math?" I asked, looking thoroughly confused.

Evelyn nodded sadly. "You are your father's daughter. It is your responsibility to at least look at it."

I took the heavy binder and opened it. The paper smelled strange, like harsh chemicals and damp ink. It was the distinct smell of special erasing fluid.

My eyes scanned the columns. My heart did a cold, hard flip.

A thirty-million-dollar expenditure had been scratched out and rewritten as three million. The tampering was incredibly sloppy, the ghostly indentations of the original zeros still visible under the new ink.

They really thought my brain was completely hollow. They were not even trying to hide their crimes.

Since they were so confident in my stupidity, I had to reward them for their faith.

I looked up, blinking rapidly. "Evelyn, these numbers give me a headache. Can Rose come explain them to me?"

Evelyn immediately called Rose and Amy into the room.

The three of them surrounded my bed. Rose forced herself to patiently point at every single line item, explaining them in a gentle, soothing voice. But I could see a bead of nervous sweat forming on her forehead.

I kept pointing to the same glaring discrepancy. "But why does this line look so messy? What was the number before it got changed?"

Rose's mouth twitched. "It was just a typo by the accountant. We fixed it for you."

I pointed to another blaring error. "What about this one? Why did thirty million turn into three million?"

Amy's professional patience finally cracked. Her tone turned sharp. "You do not need to worry about the details. Just sign your name at the bottom. We are taking care of it."

My eyes instantly welled up with tears. My lower lip quivered violently. "Are you guys mad at me because I am stupid? I do not want to sign this anymore. I am going to call Mr. Harrison. He was Dad's favorite lawyer, and he told me to call him if I ever got confused."

Mr. Harrison was the corporate attorney my father trusted with his life, and the very same man who had been secretly feeding me company updates.

Rose's face drained of all color. She lunged forward, grabbing my arm, her voice pitching up in panic. "No! Do not bother the lawyers. We are just trying to help you. Do you really think your big sister would trick you?"

I looked at her, tears spilling down my cheeks, sniffling loudly. "If you promise everything is okay, then write me a guarantee. Write down on a piece of paper that signing this book will not make me lose any of my money. Then I will sign it."

Rose and Amy exchanged a long, tense look.

The room was suffocatingly quiet.

Amy finally gritted her teeth. "Fine. We will write it."

Rose pulled a crisp piece of stationary from my desk. She picked up a pen and wrote out a formal guarantee, stating that the ledger was entirely accurate and would not result in any financial loss to my estate.

She signed her name with an angry flourish. Amy signed directly below her.

I read the paper carefully, making sure the wording was ironclad, before folding it up and slipping it into my pajama pocket.

Then, I picked up a pen and signed the forged ledger.

I made sure my handwriting was atrocious, shaky and oversized, like a child learning cursive. I completely changed the way I held the pen, ensuring a handwriting expert would have a nightmare trying to match it to my real signature later.

As soon as they had the signed book in their hands, Rose and Amy let out a simultaneous breath of relief. I saw the triumphant, greedy smiles they flashed each other before they practically ran out of the room.