Chapter 8
When I woke up, I found myself in a room filled with flowers.
A nurse sat beside me, gently holding my hand.
Her voice was soft, almost motherly.
“Sweetheart, don’t worry,” she said.
“You may not have parents, but we’ve received so many donations.”
“Your medical bills and recovery expenses are all covered.”
“Even though your fingers can’t be saved, people online–your ‘internet parents‘–are working on getting prosthetics made for you.”
“They’ll make sure you can live as normally as possible.”
“And there’s more,” she added with a hopeful smile.
“The director of a local shelter wants to meet you. Even though you’re almost an adult, there are a few families who’d like to adopt you.”
Her words sank in, warming the cold, empty void inside me.
For the first time, it felt like a glimmer of light was breaking through.
But then, I spoke, my voice raspy and broken.
“I… I have parents.”
The nurse froze, her face falling with pity.
“Honey, it’s okay. You’re safe now. You don’t need to-”
“No,” I cut her off, my voice trembling but firm.
“I do. My parents are Roger and Evelyn Quinn. I’m their biological daughter.”
She hesitated, clearly unsure how to respond.
I met her gaze with hollow, unflinching eyes.
It must’ve unsettled her because, after a moment, she sighed and called for the doctor to perform a DNA test.
As they took a hair sample, I looked back at her.
“Can I go on TV?”
08:12
Fingerprints of Betraval
Chapter 8
She blinked, startled.
“Well… there are reporters waiting outside, but we didn’t want to overwhelm you. We’ve been turning them away.”
I shook my head.
“I can handle it. I need to say something.”
On national television, I laid it all bare.
I told the world everything–how I’d been treated since I returned to my parents‘ home, the neglect, the abuse, and the nightmare I endured after being kidnapped.
When viewers learned Roger and Evelyn Quinn were my biological parents, the public lost their minds.
Social media exploded with rage.
People were calling for the death penalty, demanding justice for what they’d done.
But they wouldn’t live to see the court’s verdict.
Roger and Evelyn didn’t last long in prison.
Their fellow inmates made sure of that.
Before they died, they both learned the truth: it was me who had leaked the evidence.
The video they feared most, the one that kept them awake at night, had been hidden in my severed fingers all along.
If they hadn’t been so disgusted by me–if they’d just looked at me, even for a second–they might’ve found it in time to destroy it.
But it was too late for regrets.
As the end drew near, Roger kept muttering to himself, “Why why didn’t I check? I should’ve checked… It’s Lila’s fault! She stopped me… Damn her!”
Evelyn’s last words were full of bitterness.
“She held it out to me. Why didn’t I take it? Why did I turn away?”
“It’s all Lila’s fault! Why couldn’t she die instead?!”
But that was after the fact.
Toward the end of the broadcast, the reporters brought out Lila, who had been milking her victim act while I was
unconscious.
She’d gained sympathy by claiming to be an abused, helpless adopted daughter, and she’d already started making money as a livestreamer.
Fingerprints of Betrayal
2.5
Chapter 8
The second she saw me, her instincts kicked in–she tried to run.
But I was quicker, grabbing her arm before she could bolt
No more hiding.
No more staying quiet.
I looked straight into the cameras and let it all out.
“Roger and Evelyn Quinn’s crimes? Lila knew about all of it. She wasn’t just a bystander.”
“When I was kidnapped, she sent me multiple messages mocking me.”
“She wanted me gone from the moment I came home.”
“She schemed to push me out so she could keep being their only daughter.”
“And now that they’re the villains, she’s turned on them too, playing the victim and trying to con the public for sympathy!”
The room erupted as reporters swarmed her, their cameras and microphones in her face.
She was trembling, visibly panicking, but I underestimated her shamelessness.
With a defiant tilt of her head, she snapped, “You’ve got proof? Huh? Where’s your evidence? You think you can just accuse me like this?”
Her audacity made me laugh–a hollow, bitter sound.
“You think deleting your messages makes you untouchable?” I shot back.
“If our so–called parents hadn’t hated me so much, if they hadn’t joined in your little games to break me, maybe you would’ve gotten away with it.”
“But you? You’re nothing but a fraud.”
I’d prepared for this.
Long before, I’d worked with tech experts to recover the texts she thought she’d erased.
Without another word, I dropped the evidence.
Screenshots, timestamps–everything.
The internet exploded.
Lila’s carefully crafted image fell apart in an instant.
She fled the studio in tears, shoved and heckled by the furious crowd.
2.6
Chapter 8
Her livestream accounts were banned, her school expelled her, and the Quinus fully estate was seized
No one–not even their extended relatives–wanted anything to do with her anymore
Alone and desperate, Lila ended up hiding in an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of town
That’s where the same people she’d scammed and conned finally found her
They dragged her to prison.
But prison wasn’t kind to her.
What awaited her there was worse than death,
It was hell on earth.
