His Promise, Her Prison

fiancé, Don Ford, was waiting for me,

all for a crime my adopted sister, Kelsey, committed. She

for prison. They called my seve

rang. Kelsey was having another one of her "episodes," and he

storage room on the third floor. My parents' orders.

ip fund, and she was the reason I lost seven years of my life. I was th

with an email. It was a job offer for a classified position I had applied for eight

eply with sh

acc

pte

son. It wasn't because of a judg

t behind the wheel, drunk. She hit someone and fled the

y, sat me down. My biological

aid, her voice cold. "She can't

ther asked, not looking at

asking. But one night, they bundled me into a

l magnate who could make things happen. He arranged everything. He held m

romised. "Just bear with it for these seven years.

worse fate he meant. I on

iron gate slid open, and I walked out in

out. He looked the same, impossibly handsome in

rms to hug me.

arms falling to hi

n, all sharp angles and shadows. Seven years of prison food and hard labor had carved me into someone I didn't re

t. "I told you I would be. We'll g

ally looked at him, and felt nothing. The love I once had, the desperate

asked. My voice wa

. they couldn't make it. Kelsey had another one of her ep

ts had adopted years ago. She was their everything. I was their biological

. I was an orphan, and I thought I had found my home. But they already

was just the house where I used to live. The butler, a man who

room on the third floor," he said, his voice dripping with condesce

, dusty and forgotten. It was where they had

"I'll talk to them, Anna

e said, his face creasing with worry. "I have

. Of course he did.

othing but a profou

in my own family's house. I walked up the back stai

ear my parents talking in th

my mother's voice,

n the storage room,"

upsetting Kelsey. Don is on his way to

ht had turned to stone,

umpy mattress. My phone, a cheap burner phone given

lassified Position - Nati

a position I had applied for eight years ago, before my life was st

ay

eply with sh

acc