Unwanted No More: The Heiress's Ultimate Escape

My biological parents, the Duncans, finally threw me out, discarding me like trash onto the wet Chicago pavement.

Minutes later, trapped in a kidnapper's van, I heard my own brother Andrew on speaker, coldly telling them to do whatever they wanted with me – they didn't care.

Stella, the perfect daughter they raised in my place, even chimed in with fake sympathy, reinforcing their blatant disregard for my life.

I survived the kidnapping, even a stabbing where I saved a stranger, only for Andrew to accuse me of faking it all for attention and sympathy while still demanding I return to their gilded cage.

Why did my own family hate me so much, even choosing to let me die repeatedly, while showering affection on a girl who clearly manipulated them?

I jumped into Lake Michigan, not to end my life, but to escape their suffocating lies and build a new one, free from the ghost of Jocelyn Chavez.

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.

The kidnappers, whose names I learned were Ricky and Sal, argued for ten minutes. Their grand ransom plan had collapsed. They were left with a hostage nobody wanted and no money.

"What do we do now?" Ricky, the sweaty one, whined. "We can' t just let her go. She saw our faces."

"We' re not killers, Ricky!" Sal, the bigger one, shot back. He was clearly the one with a slightly more functional brain.

I was getting impatient. "Look, it' s not that complicated. You kill me, you dump the body. Problem solved."

They both looked at me like I was insane.

"We' re not killing you, lady," Sal said, shaking his head. "That' s not what we do."

He sighed, running a hand over his face. "Okay. New plan. We need cash. There' s a convenience store up the block. We' ll hit it. You," he pointed at me, "are coming with us. You' ll be our insurance."

This was getting ridiculous. My perfect, easy death was being hijacked by incompetent criminals who wanted to rob a 7-Eleven.

Before I was Jocelyn Chavez, the unwanted Duncan heiress, I was just Jocelyn. A kid bounced between foster homes in the worst parts of Chicago. I saw things. I learned things. I knew how a convenience store robbery could go wrong. A nervous clerk, a silent alarm, a hero trying to stop it. People got shot. It was still a chance.

So I nodded. "Fine. Let' s go."

They dragged me out of the van and pushed me into the brightly lit store. Sal waved a gun at the teenage clerk, who immediately put his hands up, his face pale with fear. Ricky started stuffing cash from the register into a bag.

It was all going too smoothly.

Then I saw her. A young woman, maybe my age, hiding behind a rack of potato chips. She was trying to call someone on her phone.

Sal saw her too. He moved toward her, his gun raised. "Hey! You! Put the phone down! Now!"

The woman, Molly Johns, was frozen in terror. Her eyes were wide, her hands shaking. Sal was getting angrier, more agitated. This was it. This was the moment it could all go wrong.

This was my chance.

In that split second, I didn' t think. I just acted. I saw the path to the end I wanted.

I threw myself forward, shoving Molly out of the way. I didn' t see the knife in Ricky' s hand until it was too late. He had been coming up behind her, and my shove put me right in his path.

A sharp, cold pain shot through my side. It wasn' t like I imagined. It was just... a pressure, then a strange warmth spreading through my shirt.

I looked down. The handle of a cheap steak knife was sticking out of my abdomen. Blood was already soaking through the fabric.

"Perfect," I whispered.

The world started to spin. The bright lights of the store blurred. The last thing I saw before I blacked out was a face pushing through the small crowd that had gathered outside.

A face I knew.

It was Andrew. And he looked horrified.