The day the developer’s buyout money hit my account, my brother, Kevin, burst through the door, his face a mask of terror. “Sarah! Your daughter—Chloe—down the street, a van just grabbed her! They’re demanding ten million dollars, or they’ll kill her.” Before the words had even settled in the air, a heavy thud sounded at the front door. On the porch sat a black package. Inside, nestled in cotton, was half a human finger. Kevin’s face went white. “Get the money, Sarah, we have to get the money now! Before it’s too late!” I wasn’t panicking, not the way he expected. I looked at the gruesome trophy and spoke calmly. “A finger doesn’t prove anything. Not unless the kidnappers send an ear.” I paused, letting the silence stretch. “Chloe has a tiny pink mole on her right earlobe.” Kevin stared at me, his jaw slack, then turned and left without another word. That afternoon, a new package arrived. It contained a right ear, a small pink mole clearly visible. My parents, who had rushed over, collapsed into histrionics, wailing around the gruesome delivery. But I remained unmoved. “Plenty of people have moles,” I said, my voice flat. “Am I supposed to hand over ten million dollars to every crank who knows how to use a knife? I won’t believe a thing until I see the birthmark on Chloe’s thigh. A pale blue mark, shaped like a crescent moon.” The next day, a severed human leg, bloody and pale, was thrown onto our lawn. I watched Kevin, saw the flicker of triumph, of barely concealed excitement in his eyes, and I smiled a smile that no one else could see. Because the girl with the crescent-moon birthmark wasn't my daughter. It was his. 1 “Sarah, what are you waiting for? Do you want to wait until they send Chloe back to you piece by piece before you pay the ransom?” Kevin’s brow was a knot of anxiety. He paced the living room, a convincing performance of a man consumed with worry for his niece. My husband, Mark, his eyes red-rimmed and swollen, shot up from the couch. “I’m getting the bank statements. I’ll wire the money.” I grabbed his arm and yanked him back down just as he stood up. Then, I hit play on the audio file the kidnappers had sent. A girl’s voice, sharp and hoarse, screamed with desperation. “Mom! Dad! Help me, please, I can’t take it anymore!” The sound shattered the room. Everyone fell silent, their faces etched with heartbreak. Everyone but me. I scoffed. “The deepfake technology these days is incredible. They can send fake limbs, fake ears… but they can’t fake a voice.” I leaned forward, my tone analytical and cold. “Every person’s vocal print is unique. And that is not Chloe.” Hearing my detached analysis, Mark finally exploded. “Sarah, how long are you going to keep lying to yourself? Do you need to see her body before you’ll finally believe it?” Kevin nodded furiously, jumping in to support him. “He’s right, sis. I know you just got the buyout money and you’re afraid to let it go, but this is life and death. You can always make more money. You can’t get another daughter.” He pulled a blood-stained piece of clothing from his backpack. “The kidnappers sent this to my house. It’s that Dior dress you bought for Chloe. I was with you when you got it, remember? The only one from that collection in the entire city.” The dress was a cheap, coarse knockoff. Tucked into the collar was a Post-it note. Last warning. Three days. If you don’t have the money, the next thing you get will be her head. The threat hung in the air, thick and suffocating. Mark, his face burning with rage, shoved me hard. “If you’re really doing this because of the money, you don’t deserve to be a mother!” Just as I was about to stop him, my phone buzzed. A new photo. A close-up of a shattered mouth, teeth laid out in a neat, grotesque row. Kevin’s wife, Brenda, leaned over my shoulder, her voice dripping with exaggerated pity. “Oh, my God. Chloe is such a beautiful girl… but look how dirty her teeth are. She really needs to take better care of herself.” It was a throwaway comment, a piece of casual cruelty, but it changed everything. Mark heard her and snatched the phone from my hand. In the photo, half the teeth were riddled with cavities. They were yellowed, caked with plaque. He froze. Chloe was meticulous about her teeth, with dental check-ups every six months. Her teeth looked nothing like this. A flash of shock, then confusion, crossed his face. He looked at me, a question in his eyes. And that’s when I let myself break. Sobs tore from my chest, my body collapsing as if under a great weight. “It really is her,” I wailed. “It really is my baby girl. The money just came in, and now this… This is going to kill me!” Seeing me finally convinced, a glint of triumph flashed in the eyes of my brother, my sister-in-law, and my parents, who were still weeping theatrically on the floor. As they watched me, their faces full of greedy anticipation, I suddenly shook my head, my voice turning hard as stone. “No. No, I can’t. She’s just a girl, a money pit. Let her die. I’m not paying.” Kevin was stunned speechless. “Sarah… I thought she was the light of your life?” But I wasn’t listening. I started shoving them all toward the door. “Stop trying to convince me! I’m not paying unless you’re paying for it!” Once they were gone, Mark locked the door and turned to me, his voice a low whisper. “What the hell is going on?” I looked at him, and the tears that flowed now were real. Because in my last life, Kevin used this exact same scheme to steal my buyout money. And Mark and I, we believed him. We scraped together every penny, borrowed from anyone who would listen. Mark even sold one of his kidneys on the black market. But in the end, our daughter was still brutally murdered. Unable to face the truth, Mark jumped from a bridge. After I had numbly arranged the funerals, I saw him. On a street corner, laughing with the kidnapper as they split the ransom money. “That little brat kept insisting she wasn’t Chloe Wang,” the kidnapper said, lighting a cigarette. “A chopped finger convinced her otherwise.” Kevin took a long drag from his own cigarette, a cruel smirk on his face. “She’s just like her mother. If Sarah had just given me the money in the first place, none of this would have happened. Now she’s out a daughter, too.” The kidnapper’s words—insisting she wasn’t Chloe Wang—echoed in my head. I ran back to the morgue, to the headless corpse the police had found. The body was a close match to my daughter’s, about eight-tenths of the way there, but when I saw the pale, crescent-shaped birthmark on her thigh, my blood ran cold. It wasn't Chloe. It was my niece, Ashley. In that instant, I knew the kidnappers had grabbed the wrong girl. At that very moment, my phone rang. It was Chloe, her voice faint. She’d been hiking in the mountains, lost her signal, and gotten lost for a few days. My daughter was safe. But my husband was dead. Consumed by a grief and rage so profound it burned away everything else, I drove to confront Kevin. I never made it. A truck ran a red light. When I opened my eyes, I was back on the day of the kidnapping. After I finished explaining, Mark pulled me into his arms, holding me so tightly I could feel the frantic beating of his heart against my own. “I believe you,” he whispered into my hair. “And this time, we’re going to make them pay.” 2 The next morning, Kevin arrived with my parents and a dozen other relatives in tow. He was holding his phone, live-streaming. “My sister might not be willing to pay the ransom for her own daughter,” he announced to his audience, his voice thick with false emotion, “but I can’t just stand by and watch my niece die. So I’m giving my sister my entire life’s savings. It’s all I have, but it’s a start.” He slapped a thin stack of cash on the table. Ten thousand dollars. I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. His gesture, however, sent the live stream’s comment section into a frenzy. 【OMG, what an amazing uncle! He’s an angel compared to that heartless mother.】 【Look at her, dressed in designer clothes. It’s not like she doesn’t have the money.】 My parents joined the performance, raising their canes and bringing them down on my head and shoulders. “You ungrateful child! Your own brother is helping you like this, and you still won’t pay! If you don’t save your daughter, I’ll disown you!” They acted like they were on my side, but I knew the truth. In my last life, I learned they knew about Kevin’s plan all along. They actively helped him deceive me. I pushed down the hatred simmering in my gut and collapsed onto the floor, playing the part of a hysterical shrew. “No! I don’t have the money!” I screamed. “That buyout is for my new villa! Not a chance, not unless Kevin pays for half of it!” My father lunged at me and slapped me hard across the face, his eyes bulging. “You monster! How dare you try to take your brother’s money? Forget it!” Mark shoved him back, pulling me behind him. “My wife is right,” he snarled, adopting my greedy persona. “You want us to save her? Help us pay for it. Otherwise, we won’t.” He shrugged. “Besides, Chloe is just a girl. We can always have another one. A boy would be better. Cheaper than paying a ten-million-dollar ransom, that’s for sure.” The live stream exploded. 【Holy crap. These two are a perfect match. Shamelessness on a whole new level.】 【They’re so reluctant to pay… and talking about having a son instead. Wait a minute… what if they hired the kidnappers themselves?】 Kevin’s plan was to use public pressure to break me, but my skin was thicker than he could ever imagine. Seeing that I wouldn’t budge, a flicker of hesitation crossed his face. He pulled Brenda aside. They whispered furiously for a long time, weighing their options. Finally, they decided that five million was better than nothing. He made a call. To a loan shark. “I’ll do it,” he declared to the camera, his face a mask of saintly sacrifice. “To save my niece, I’ll do anything.” His audience swooned. The loan sharks were fast. In less than an hour, five million dollars appeared in my bank account. Kevin’s eyes gleamed. “Okay, sis. Now can we go save her?” He didn’t expect my reaction. I smiled sweetly, took my bank card, and locked it away in the safe. “Thank you so much, Kevin,” I chirped. “I’m so glad you finally paid back all the money you’ve borrowed from me over the years.” The realization dawned on his face, twisting his features into an ugly snarl. He clenched his fists. “What did you just say?” I looked him straight in the eye, my smile widening into a mocking grin. Over the past decade, he had bled me dry, nickel-and-diming me for millions with an endless stream of excuses, always claiming to be broke when it was time to pay it back. I spread my hands, a picture of innocence. “I’m just saying, the money is in my account now, which means it’s mine. And if you think I’m going to spend it on that little money pit, you’re crazy.” My shamelessness seemed to break something in him. He threw his phone aside and lunged, his fists raining down on my head. “You bitch! You tricked me!” Mark grabbed him by the collar, ripped him off me, and smashed a glass ashtray over his head. “Get out!” he roared. “My wife said no, and she meant it. Who the hell do you think you are, putting your hands on her?” Kevin, bleeding and enraged, was about to charge again when his phone, lying on the floor, buzzed. A video call request. From the kidnapper.
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