Chapter 1

The Duncan family threw me out of their mansion an hour ago.

Mr. and Mrs. Duncan, my biological parents, stood at the door and watched as the butler tossed my cheap backpack onto the wet Chicago pavement.

"Stay away from us," Mrs. Duncan said, her voice as cold as the November wind. "You are a disgrace."

Andrew, my biological brother, stood beside them. He looked at me like I was something he' d scraped off his shoe. Stella, the girl they raised as their own, clung to his arm, her eyes full of fake sympathy.

They didn' t want me. They had their perfect daughter, Stella. I was just a dirty secret from the past, a reminder of something they wanted to forget.

So here I was, back on the streets where I started. The foster system had spit me out, and now my real family had done the same.

There was nothing left. No reason to keep going.

I walked toward the nearest bridge. The water below looked dark and final. It seemed like a good way to end things. Efficient. Quiet.

I was halfway across the bridge when a white van screeched to a halt beside me. The side door slid open. Before I could even process what was happening, two men grabbed me and pulled me inside.

The door slammed shut, and the world went dark.

I should have been scared. Instead, a strange sense of relief washed over me. Maybe this was it. Maybe they would do the job for me.

One of the men, sweaty and nervous, held a phone. "We got her," he grunted into it. "Yeah, the Duncan girl."

The other one tied my hands with a rough zip tie. He didn' t even look at me.

"What do you want?" I asked, my voice flat.

"Shut up," the sweaty one snapped. "We want money. A lot of it."

I almost laughed. They thought the Duncans would pay for me? That was the funniest thing I' d heard all day.

"You should call them," I said, leaning back against the cold metal wall of the van. "Tell them you have their long-lost daughter. See what they say."

The man glared at me, then dialed a number. He put it on speaker.

A familiar, arrogant voice answered. Andrew.

"Who is this?"

"We have your sister," the kidnapper said, trying to sound tough. "Jocelyn Chavez. If you want to see her again, you' ll pay us five million dollars."

There was a pause. Then Andrew laughed. A cold, cruel sound.

"Jocelyn? You' ve got to be kidding me. She probably paid you to do this. Another pathetic attempt to get attention and money."

Stella' s voice chimed in from the background, sweet and poisonous. "Andrew, don' t be so harsh. Maybe she' s just confused. She' s not used to our world."

"She' s a gold-digger, Stella," Andrew shot back. "And we' re not paying a cent. Do whatever you want with her. We don' t care."

The line went dead.

The two kidnappers stared at the phone, then at each other, then at me. Their faces were a perfect picture of disbelief.

The sweaty one looked like he was about to cry. "They... they don' t want you?"

"Told you," I said with a shrug.

I leaned forward. "So, what now? Are you going to kill me? Because if you are, you should probably get on with it. I don' t have all day."

The men just stared at me, their simple plan completely ruined. My complete lack of fear, my actual desire for them to finish the job, had broken their script. They had no idea what to do with a hostage who wanted to die.