From Pantry To MIT: Their Regret

to death on a mountain just t

body back home days later

d why I was making such a sc

I was the Corbett fa

n a pantry and scrubbed their floors while Ange

I finally packed my bags to leave forever, they

ked at me with disgust, claiming my sur

es, but they wou

school to save their plummetin

bill, and every crime to the princi

full ride, the Corbett empi

e one holdi

pte

rin

a sound I knew too well, a sound that always meant trouble. I was already halfway down the steps of the mansion, my

ifted through the evening air. She appeared at the threshold, Cordell

ate porcelain doll, her designer silk robe shimmering under the porch lights. I watched them, a familiar

for a split second, I saw a flicker of something calculating behind her

was just going to surprise you with it." Her voice

er them, landing on Angelique. My face remained impassive. "Oh, a new car? How terribly thoughtful. Is it perhaps the latest mo

My sarcasm, honed over years of their casual cruelt

of any genuine emotion. "Let's not make a scene. We' ve all had a di

hat left me stranded, broken, left to freeze to death

, mistaking my silence for submission. "

ter weeks in a cast, limping through a strange hospital where not a single Corbett came to visit. Perfectly fine after paying my

rything they wanted: beautiful, fragile, and utterly compliant. I was the anomaly, the inconvenient heir who dared to have opinions, who dared to excel academically, who never quite fit their gilded cage. Every triumph, every small victor

tears eventually dried up, replaced by a cold, hard resolve. I stopped hoping. I stopped caring. I started planning. I had already sec

lence. "Live, that is. I plan to live very well." I met Cordell's gaze, my eyes devoid of the longing he was perhaps accustomed to seei

but a fleeting smirk betrayed her feigned shock. She

voice sharp and final. "If that is what you wish. But know this, Catrina. Once yo

was now subtly clutching Dozier's arm, her eyes wide and wet. "I wouldn't want to intrude on your perfect family,

bserving its prey. How many times had I seen that look? The trembling lower lip, the tear-filled eyes designed to

lothes, the designer bags, the lavish parties, all bought with the money that could have, should have, been mine. I remembered my own threadbare clothes, the stale bread for dinner, the cramped, unheated clo

imply stating a fact. Their "upbringing," as they so proudly called

, emotional manipulation, and physical deprivation. Shall we tally the hours I spent cleaning your mansion, preparing your meals, tutoring Angelique, all while being told I was worthless? S

asculine voice sliced through the a

dlights cut through the deepening twilight, illuminating Dozier Corbett as he