Chapter 1 Thirteen Years in Prison

January 1st. Snow poured from the sky. Fireworks lit up the night. "Windy Sue, you can leave now. When you get out, try to live a good life. Start over." Thirteen years. From twenty-two to thirty-five, she finally shed that deep blue prison uniform. With a loud clang, the heavy iron door swung open. A thin, skeletal figure slowly stepped out. Her dry, messy hair clung to her head like desert tumbleweed. Before her stretched a vast sheet of white. The pale light reflected into her eyes. It was blinding. She raised her hand to shield herself from the harsh light, but greedily parted her fingers a little, eager to soak up this dazzling taste of freedom. Windy’s cracked lips lifted into a faint, desolate smile. Heh. How was she supposed to live a good life now? Before prison, she had been the pride of Ocean City — the eldest daughter of the Sue family. Sweet, obedient, and well-educated. She had a younger sister, Elsa — confident, cheerful, stunningly beautiful. She also had a fiancé she had loved for four years, Morgan Hanson. At eighteen, Morgan had become the brightest star in Ocean City. The Hanson family's businesses spanned all of Xandor. At twenty, he took over the family and became the youngest head of Electra Corp. At twenty-two, on the day before their wedding... The man she loved most, and the sister she cherished most, had teamed up to send her to prison. "Elsa, did you personally see Windy commit murder?" "Yes... even though she’s my sister, I can’t ignore the law..." "Morgan, are you sure it was Windy who killed Stella Wynn?" "I don't play favorites. I saw it with my own eyes. The murderer was... Windy." All the witnesses, all the evidence — everything pointed to Windy. ... Those cold, merciless voices still haunted her dreams, day after day, night after night. Windy looked down at her shabby, thin clothes. A ragged cotton jacket barely clung to her body. Underneath, only a pair of threadbare thermal pants. One foot was covered by a sock with toes sticking out. The other wore a worn cloth shoe patched in several places. None of it was hers. She had been dragged away in a wedding dress the day she was arrested. The clothes had been given to her by sympathetic inmates who pieced them together for her. Pitiful as they were, they were the warmest clothes she had worn in thirteen years. Behind her, she heard the iron door slam shut and lock once again. Windy pulled an old newspaper out of her coat pocket. Staring at the image from thirteen years ago — herself in a wedding dress and handcuffs — she couldn’t stop the tears from falling. One drop after another splattered onto the yellowed paper. "Windy Sue, daughter of the Sue family, convicted of murdering Stella Wynn. Sentenced to twenty years." Inside the blood-soaked prison, she had been given "special attention," beaten so often her body was constantly covered in bruises. The only thing that kept her alive was hatred. She had behaved as best she could, cutting her sentence down to thirteen years. Thirteen years! Windy suddenly burst into laughter, her body trembling from the force of it. She laughed until cold tears streaked down her rough cheeks. She was a joke. A fool in everyone’s eyes. The same month she was locked up, her father David had publicly disowned her in the newspapers. She had wanted so badly to ask her parents — why were they so unfair? She thought if she was perfect in every way, they would smile at her kindly, hug her warmly, pat her head the way they did Elsa. She thought if she scored perfect marks on every exam, they would be proud of her and say, "Our daughter is amazing — the best little princess in the world..." But she was wrong. She wasn’t allowed to be better than Elsa. To make her parents happy, she had even deliberately scored lower, so that every time Elsa was praised and pampered, she could feel a tiny shred of their affection too. Anything Elsa liked, she had to hand over willingly without a word. No matter what she did, it could never compare to a single tear from Elsa. If Elsa cried, everything was Windy's fault. If Elsa pouted, they pampered her. If Elsa shed tears, they hurt for her. Windy, on the other hand, had to watch every expression, walk on eggshells, and obey without question. Every day was filled with fear, terrified of upsetting Elsa and drawing yet another wave of scolding. If they loved Elsa so much, why had they made such a grand show of bringing her back? She thought when she returned to the Sue family, she would no longer be labeled a bastard. She thought her parents still loved her, that they had been looking for her all these years. Back then, she felt like the luckiest girl in the world, desperate to tell everyone how much her parents loved her. Look! They brought her home, held a lavish welcome party just for her. But she had been wrong — so terribly, hopelessly wrong. With just one word from Elsa, she would always be the dispensable one. They, the three of them, were the real family. She was just a filthy rat crawling out of the gutter, daring to covet a life that wasn’t hers. All she had ever wanted was a little love. Just a little. But Elsa wanted to take it all — every drop of love, turning those who loved Windy, and whom Windy loved, into Windy's enemies. She was their mother's daughter too. Why had they treated her so differently? The memories played over and over in her mind, like a never-ending film reel. The man who had once sworn to love her forever had joined hands with Elsa to throw her into hell. She, Windy Sue— Now had nothing. One was the powerful CEO of Electra Corp. The other was the darling of the Sue Corporation. Revenge! Heh. Thirteen years in prison had turned her from a pampered heiress who had never lifted a finger into a stray, a rat everyone wanted to crush. And it was all thanks to them. Standing at the crossroads, Windy felt lost. She didn’t know where to go. She was so hungry. She didn’t have a cent to her name. She walked for over two hours, through busy streets jammed with cars and people. But she didn’t recognize any of it. Ocean City had changed too much. She snatched a black trash bag from a garbage bin. As she walked, she dug through bins along the way. Anything usable, she stuffed into the bag. In one bin, she found a half-eaten takeout box. She wiped off the dirt on the lid, crouched in a corner, opened the box, and ate. She ignored the disgusted, contemptuous stares of the people around her, scarfing down every last grain of rice. "Elsa is amazing! I cried for half an hour watching her live stream last night — she finally won Best Actress!" "Yeah, me too! And Mr. Morgan gave her a ten-carat diamond ring on the spot. She’s so lucky!" "She's seriously the ultimate winner in life — amazing career, gorgeous husband, and now she's pregnant with their second kid!" A few starstruck girls gushed as they stared up at a giant screen. Crouched in the shadows, Windy’s empty eyes flickered. Slowly, she straightened up and looked at the massive billboard. Her amber eyes gleamed with a venomous, burning hatred. Her fists clenched and unclenched again and again, nails digging into her palms, yet she didn’t feel a thing. Thirteen years. Four thousand seven hundred forty-five days. Elsa, I went to prison in your place. Every single day was agony. How can you live so easily, so guiltlessly?