Introduction

My crystal glass felt cold, a stark contrast to the stifling ballroom where hundreds of people laughed around me.

Then I saw her, Scarlett Hayes, the city' s richest heiress, moving directly towards me, her cruel smile widening.

She publicly humiliated me, reminding everyone how her family funded my mother' s medical bills and my education. She' d always made it clear what I was: her servant, her puppet.

I was nothing more than a stand-in, a substitute for Liam, her obsessed-over step-brother. The constant abuse, the public shaming – it was all her game.

But then my phone rang. It was the hospital.

"Mr. Miller?" a nurse' s voice said, urgent. "It' s your mother."

A cold dread washed over me. I raced to the hospital, but it was too late.

My mother was gone. The payment for her emergency medication had been canceled, that very afternoon. By Scarlett.

She had done this. Her petty revenge had cost my mother her life.

The grief was a physical blow, but beneath it, something else simmered. The deal was broken. I had nothing left to lose.

I walked back to her mansion, left her key and her credit card on the table.

"My mother is dead," I said, my voice flat.

"Well, that' s not my problem," she retorted.

"No," I said, looking her directly in the eye for the first time without fear. "It' s not. Not anymore."

I turned and walked out, leaving my life as her puppet behind. For the first time in a year, I felt like I could breathe.

I was free. Or so I thought.