The ambulance siren faded, but the chaos at the Sterling mansion was just beginning.
My adoptive sister, Charlotte, had slit her wrist, her note simply stating my name: "Ava."
Suddenly, I was standing in the opulent living room, the one where they' d celebrated my adoption five years ago, now a courtroom where I was on trial.
My adoptive mother, Eleanor, shrieked, her perfectly manicured hand trembling as she pointed at me.
"She loved you. She looked up to you. And you did this to her."
Richard Sterling, my adoptive father and a man whose tech empire I was secretly working to expose, stepped forward, his face a thundercloud of rage.
"Don' t lie to me, Ava. Charlotte' s note was clear. You' ve been tormenting her."