Chapter 3 3

Something that might have been pity flickered in Preston's eyes. He pressed the card into Ainsley's hand anyway. Looking at her pale, expressionless face, his voice softened with practiced concern. "You have everything? You can wear that necklace I bought you for your tenth birthday. It was a gift for you-it's yours. No harm in keeping it."

Eleanor's brows knitted instantly. She shot an annoyed glance at Ainsley, but her pride kept her silent over a necklace that cost maybe a couple hundred bucks.

Katharina stood obediently beside her grandmother, echoing Preston's words with sweet insincerity. "Yeah, sis, Dad gave it to you, so you should wear it. You... you might need it later."

She let the sentence hang, the implication clear.

Ainsley lifted her eyelids slowly. The glance she cast Katharina was cold, untamable-the look a wolf gives a yapping lapdog.

Katharina responded with a haughty smile. That patronizing, superior expression matched every other Thomas in the room perfectly. *Same blood,* Ainsley thought. *Same poison.*

She hoisted her shoulder bag higher. She took the bank card Preston had forced into her palm and set it back on the table. Her voice was flat. Unforgiving.

"That necklace is in the top drawer of my old room. You can check if you don't believe me. Aside from the laptop I bought myself with my own money, I haven't taken a single thing that belongs to the Thomas family."

The words landed like ice water.

The Thomases exchanged glances, visibly embarrassed. Especially Eleanor and Meredith, who had stayed silent out of false dignity moments before-their faces darkened instantly.

This was classic Ainsley. Never knew how to be obedient. Always making them lose face.

Katharina glanced at the backpack on Ainsley's shoulders, her eyes flickering with dismissive contempt. She tilted her head, voice dripping with manufactured concern. "Sis, that's not what Mom, Dad, and Grandma meant. You're being way too sensitive. We've lived together for over a decade. Even if you found your birth parents, you're still my sister. We all want you to be happy."

She paused, letting her gaze drop to the bulging backpack.

"If you don't want the necklace, at least take the money Dad offered. I mean, wherever you're going... it's not exactly D.C. You'll need cash for everything. And that backpack looks pretty full-must be more than just a laptop in there."

The implication was surgical. Delivered with a smile.

Preston snapped back to attention, his expression souring as he forced a nod. "Yeah. Take the money. Don't be stubborn."

Ainsley's phone buzzed in her pocket. She glanced at the screen, then back at the family arranged before her like a portrait of hypocrisy. She set the card down one final time-a definitive dismissal.

"No need."

She didn't explain. Didn't justify. Just looked at the caller ID, then toward the door. "My ride's here. I'm leaving."

She walked.

The door clicked shut behind her.

Eleanor exhaled through her nose, a sharp, contemptuous sound. "Hmph. An ungrateful stray, through and through. Sixteen years we wasted raising her, and she couldn't even say a proper goodbye."

Katharina's soft voice drifted through the room, honey over venom. "Grandmother, she's just eager to see her birth parents. Can you blame her?"

She tilted her head, pretending to think. "Though... she said she only took her laptop, but that backpack looked pretty stuffed. Weird, right?"

Preston shook his head, playing the magnanimous patriarch. "Forget it. Sixteen years. Let her take whatever she wants-we don't need the petty cash."

Eleanor leaned on her cane, staring at the closed door as if she could still see the girl walking away. Her lip curled. "Good riddance. She was never one of us anyway."

She turned to Katharina, her voice warming with genuine affection. "And you-stop calling her 'sister.' Someone like her doesn't deserve the title."

Outside, the D.C. heat hit like a furnace. Waves of it rose off the pavement, distorting the air. The streets were nearly empty-just a few elderly residents seeking shade, and one thing that didn't belong.

A matte-black Rolls-Royce Wraith sat idling at the curb outside the manor gates.