Chapter 4They Can Hear Every Savage Thought

Before I could set a trap to test my telepathy hypothesis, my biological parents showed up at the front gates.

Frank Miller arrived wearing a faded, grease-stained windbreaker, his eyes artificially reddened with tears. Beside him, his wife, Martha, let out a piercing wail the moment the front doors opened, lunging across the foyer toward me with outstretched arms.

I took half a step backward, smoothly evading her embrace. "Good afternoon, Mr. and Mrs. Miller."

Martha’s theatrical sobbing hitched for a fraction of a second before redoubling in volume. She clutched at her chest, crying out that I was ashamed of their working-class roots, weeping about how sacred blood was, and how a mother’s love couldn't be bought with Harrington gold.

Couldn't be bought? I held back a dry laugh.

You’ve spent the last three days calculating my exact trade-in value. Has Damian Cross’s five-hundred-thousand-dollar cash advance cleared your checking account yet?

Frank was literally in an underground poker den in Koreatown last night dropping eighty grand, and now he’s an apostle of family values? If you need collateral for your debts so badly, why don't you harvest your own kidneys?

Arthur’s expression darkened into thunder.

Frank, entirely deaf to my thoughts, flashed Arthur an oily, deferential grin. "Mr. Harrington, sir, now that your real girl is back where she belongs, it's only right we take Paige home. We wouldn't want the tabloids saying you're hoarding someone else’s child."

Eleanor had been holding a cashier's check in her purse, meant as an olive branch. Now, her fingers tightened around the leather strap, and she quietly slid the zipper shut.

Beside me, Gwen had gone deathly pale. Her hands hung at her sides, curled into white-knuckled fists. Having lived with the Millers for twenty years, she knew the exact flavor of poison lurking behind their working-class facade.

In the novel’s later arcs, it was revealed that our swap had never been an accidental hospital mix-up. Martha had worked as a per-diem sanitation aide in the maternity ward. When she learned the Harrington family had delivered a daughter on the same floor, she swapped the wristbands during a midnight shift change.

She wanted her own flesh and blood to grow up wearing diamonds, but she lived in constant, paranoid terror of discovery. As a result, she took out her guilt and fear on Gwen—beating her, starving her, and forcing her to sleep on an old cot in the laundry room while Martha spent her modest wages buying designer knock-offs.

Now, with the truth exposed, they had taken hush money from Damian Cross to drag me away, intending to use me as a hostage to extort the Harringtons whenever Cross needed leverage.

Look at this child-trafficking monster putting on an audition for Mother of the Year, I thought coldly. The scald scar below Gwen’s collarbone came from the boiling water you threw when she was fourteen.

You spent twenty years abusing her without batting an eye. Now you want to bring me home? What, did you run out of punching bags and think my skin looks thicker?

Gwen’s head snapped up.

Martha was still weeping into a handkerchief when Gwen lunged forward, her hand clamping down around the older woman’s wrist like a vise.

"You told the authorities the hospital made an error twenty years ago," Gwen said, her voice dropping to a dangerous, icy register. "Do you have proof?"

Martha’s eyes darted nervously. "The hospital settled out of court, Gwen! You know that! It was a clerical tragedy—"

"Last Thanksgiving, when you and Frank got drunk on cheap bourbon in the kitchen," Gwen interrupted, her voice steady as a scalpel, "you bragged about how you swapped the bassinet tags. You laughed about it. And I recorded every single word on my phone."

Frank’s face turned the color of ash. He lunged across the rug to grab Gwen’s purse, but Preston stepped between them like a brick wall, catching Frank by the collar and throwing him back onto the sofa with enough force to rattle his teeth.

Gwen pulled out a small digital recorder and pressed play.

The scratchy audio filled the vaulted foyer. The Millers’ drunken voices bragged about stealing a Harrington life, sneered about how little money the family had offered so far, and plotted how they would use Paige to bleed the family dry for the next decade.

The police arrived ten minutes later.

As they were being led out in zip-ties, Frank and Martha screamed obscenities at Gwen, calling her an ungrateful wretch, before pivoting to scream at me, begging their "real daughter" to hire them a private attorney.

I stood by the grand entrance, my hands clasped loosely in front of me, watching them go with absolute detachment.

Gwen remained at my side until the sirens faded down the canyon road. Only then did the rigid tension leave her shoulders.

I pulled a clean linen handkerchief from my pocket and pressed it into her trembling fingers. "You don't owe them a single breath, Gwen."

Gwen looked down at the handkerchief, then up at the emerald bracelet still resting on my wrist.

"The swap wasn't your fault," she said quietly, her eyes clear and dark. "You don't owe me anything, either."

A strange, unfamiliar warmth tightened behind my nose. I cleared my throat, busying myself with smoothing the pleats of my skirt.

Damn it. Why is the female lead so ridiculously lovable? If this keeps up, I’m just going to move out and marry her myself.

A sudden flush of pink climbed straight up Gwen’s neck to the tips of her ears.

Behind us, Preston choked violently on a mouthful of mineral water, spraying a fine mist across the mahogany hall table.