Real Heiress Returns After Fake One’s Fortune

I gave up a faculty position at MIT to return home and grind for five years at my family's company.
I finally took it public.
But at the bell-ringing ceremony, my parents pushed a girl who looked startlingly like them onto the stage.
Evelyn, my mother said, her voice devoid of warmth, the nurse made a mistake all those years ago. Chloe is our real daughter.
"You should move out tomorrow," my father added, his tone clipped. "And before you go, remember to settle the bill for your upbringing."
"Finding a job is tough these days," my mother continued, offering a sliver of false pity. "Out of respect for our years together, you can stay on as a janitor."
Chloe smiled, lifting the ceremonial mallet, her voice laced with unconcealed triumph. "Thank you, Eva, for every project you've developed these past five years. All your patents are registered under my name now." She leaned in, her smile turning cruel. "But I don't like strangers in my house. You should leave as soon as possible."
Amid the sympathetic glances from the guests, I let out a low laugh.
A pack of fools.
If I had the power to make you, I most certainly have the power to break you.

1
I calmly pushed through the crowd and walked out of the stock exchange's grand, gilded doors.
I hailed a taxi, giving the address of the villa I had called home for over twenty years.
The driver glanced at me in the rearview mirror. He probably recognized me; the IPO ceremony had been broadcast live across every network. He didn't say a word, just quietly turned off the financial news station that was playing on the radio.
I leaned my head against the cool glass, watching the city's neon lights streak past.
My phone buzzed relentlessly. I didn't need to look. It was the media, vultures circling for the first taste of a fresh scandal.
I simply turned it off.
The taxi pulled up to the gates of the villa community.
From a distance, I could see them: two large suitcases and a cardboard box, standing alone and abandoned just outside the main gate.
A cold smirk touched my lips.
Their efficiency was truly impressive. They couldn't bear the thought of me spending another second in that house.
I dragged the suitcases to the front door, my thumb moving instinctively toward the fingerprint scanner.
Beep. Access denied. Please contact the administrator.
The electronic voice was as cold as ice.
The irony was thick enough to choke on.
I had personally designed and implemented this entire security system, from the hardware to the software. The so-called "administrator" with supreme access had always been me.
To think I would be locked out by my own creation.
Fine. It saved me the trouble of playing a part in their saccharine family drama.
I sat down on the ground, cross-legged, and opened my laptop.
With practiced ease, I navigated to the company's internal server backend.
I wanted to see just how thoroughly they had stolen my life's work.
I entered the administrator account and password I had used for five years.
But instead of the familiar interface, a stark red window popped up: User does not exist.
They were thorough, I'll give them that.
Just as I was contemplating my next move, the phone in my pocket, which I had powered down, suddenly lit up.
A number I thought I would never see again.

2
The encrypted call request flashed on the screen for less than three seconds before it vanished.
It was so quick I might have imagined it.
The screen went dark again, returning to its powered-off state. I tried to turn it back on, but the phone was completely dead.
A bitter smile played on my lips.
First things first, I needed a place to stay.
I hailed another cab and went to a decent-looking budget hotel nearby.
"A room, please," I said, handing my ID to the receptionist.
"Certainly. That will be three hundred and sixty-eight, plus a five-hundred-dollar deposit. How will you be paying?"
"Card," I said, pulling out the bank card I had used for years. It was a secondary card linked to Richard Ashworth's account, where all my salary and project bonuses had been deposited.
The receptionist inserted the card into the terminal.
Beep-beep-beep! The machine let out a series of sharp, frantic alarms.
The young woman paused, tried again, and got the same result. She looked at me, her expression apologetic. "Ma'am, I'm sorry, but there seems to be a problem with this card. It's not going through."
A knot formed in my stomach.
"Try this one." I took out my personal debit card from my wallet. I'd had it since college. It held my scholarship money and earnings from side projectsnot much, but more than enough for a few nights in a hotel.
The result was the same.
"This one isn't working either..." the receptionist's voice trailed off.
I had no choice but to ask her to let me charge my phone for a few minutes. As soon as it powered on, a text from the bank popped up.
"Dear Ms. Evelyn Ashworth, pursuant to a request filed by Mr. Richard Ashworth, all bank cards registered under your name have been frozen in connection with a 'child support recovery' claim. Total amount..."
I laughed.
Richard Ashworth had missed his calling; he would have made a brilliant accountant.
So, a hotel was out of the question.
I dragged my suitcases back onto the street. The night wind was sharp, and a chill crept into my bones.
I opened my phone and found Mark's number. He was the lead programmer, my protg. He was always the first to call me "Boss Eva," his tone thick with admiration.
The phone rang for a long time before he picked up.
"Hello? Mark, it's me."
The line was dead silent, save for the faint sound of breathing.
"I need your help. Can you get me the original development logs for the Genesis system"
"Sorry, you have the wrong number."
He cut me off flatly and hung up.
In disbelief, I dialed another core member of my team. The number was disconnected.
The people I had fought alongside, the ones with whom I'd pulled all-nighters fueled by instant noodles, sharing the joy of every solved problemthey either hung up, turned off their phones, or vanished into thin air.
They had cut me off at the knees. It was a viciously effective move.
I stood at a crossroads, watching the endless stream of headlights, and for the first time, I felt a flicker of true desolation.
No money, no home, and the comrades I once trusted were now my enemies.
He really wanted to destroy me.

3
I dragged my two suitcases through the late-night streets for so long that my legs went numb. Finally, I stopped in front of a narrow alleyway, bathed in the glow of a seedy neon sign.
Scrawled on the wall in crooked red paint were the words: Single Room, 300/Month.
Fine. This would have to do.
The landlady was a woman with a cigarette dangling from her lips. She gave my designer clothes and expensive-looking luggage a strange look but eventually tossed a greasy key at me.
One month's rent, one month's deposit. Cash only.
I emptied my wallet of the last few bills I had and, in return, received a space of less than a hundred square feet.
A plank bed, a desk with peeling paint, and a single lightbulb that flickered erratically. The walls were covered in stains left by previous tenants, and the air was a thick mixture of damp mold and cheap perfume.
I lay down on the hard bed, fully clothed, and stared at the stubbornly flashing bulb. I didn't sleep a wink.
The next morning, I was jolted awake by a commotion.
The sound of shuffling feet in the hallway was mixed with a woman's shrieks and a man's angry shouts. I ignored it until the knocking started on my door.
Bang, bang, bang!
The knocking was urgent, impatient, and certain of a response.
Assuming it was the landlady, I got up to open the door.
When I pulled it open, I froze.
It was Chloe.
Her makeup was flawless, and against the grimy, decaying backdrop of the hallway, she looked like a princess who had stumbled into the slums. Behind her stood a crowd of reporters, their cameras and microphones all pointed directly at me.
The flashbulbs went off, a blinding, popping cacophony that made my eyes ache.
"Eva," Chloe's eyes immediately filled with tears. "How could you be living in a place like this? Mom, Dad, and I have been worried sick!"
She reached for my hand, but I stepped aside, and she was left grasping at air. She didn't miss a beat, pulling a thick envelope from her purse and shoving it into my hand in full view of the cameras.
"I know things are hard for you right now," she said, her voice cracking with emotion. "Mom and Dad wanted me to give you this. Take it, find a better place to live. Please don't do this to yourself." Her performance was masterful. "And don't worry, as long as you apologize to Mom and Dad, admit you were wrong, our door will always be open for you."
I looked at her, and a strange sense of amusement washed over me.
"Chloe," I began, my voice hoarse from a night without water, "do you really think everyone in the world is as stupid as you are?"
Her expression faltered, the tears in her eyes wobbling precariously. "Eva, how can you say that? I'm just trying to help..."
"Cut the act," I interrupted. "Bringing a pack of reporters to 'visit' me? Were you afraid I wasn't dying a sufficiently humiliating death, so you came to twist the knife? Or is your 'genius girl' persona crumbling so fast you need to climb on my corpse to stay afloat?"
The color drained from Chloe's face. She couldn't believe that even in this state, I still had the audacity to speak to her like this.
She took a deep breath, dropping the pitiful act. She stepped closer, her voice a venomous whisper only I could hear. "Evelyn, you should know when you're beaten. You have nothing left. How are you going to fight me? Do you believe that with a single word, I can make it so you can't even stay in a dump like this?"
She paused, a cruel smile playing on her lips. "Be a good little nobody. Admit that everything was always mine, and maybe I'll be merciful and find you a job cleaning toilets. Otherwise, you can just wait to starve to death on the street."
With that, she reverted to her innocent, benevolent facade and sighed for the cameras. "Eva, please, think about it."
She and her media entourage swept away, leaving me in the sudden silence.
I closed the door, the murmurs outside slowly fading.
Starve to death? Clean toilets?
I walked to the only mirror in the room. The woman staring back at me was a wreck. Her hair was a mess, her eyes were shot with red, and she looked like a ghost.
But those eyes, even in the dim, flickering light, burned with a terrifying intensity.

4
Chloe's departure didn't bring peace.
The landlady in the hallway, the cashier at the corner storethey all gave me second glances, whispering to each other as I passed. I didn't have to guess; the internet was on fire again.
I locked myself in my tiny room and opened my laptop.
A moment later, an unfamiliar encrypted communication request popped up on the screen. The interface was retro, a program Jimmy Vance and I had coded for fun back in college. The encryption key was known only to the two of us.
We hadn't used it since graduation.
I accepted the request. A line of text appeared in the chatbox, written in his familiar, devil-may-care tone.
"Well, well. Dr. Ashworth. How does it feel to be an international celebrity?"
I could practically see Jimmy's smirk, his eyebrows raised in that roguish way of his. He was the reigning genius of our class, the only person who could ever match me in a technical duel. After graduation, he went to Wall Street while I returned home. We had slowly lost touch.
I was in no mood for jokes. I typed back, "Get to the point."
"Alright, straight shooter. I like it," he replied instantly. "I did a little pro-bono due diligence on Ashworth Industries in my spare time. Call it a friendly favor. Found something interesting. Your tech reports and financial data don't add up. Especially those new core patents you just announced. The theoretical models are beautiful, but the underlying architecture... tsk, tsk. It's a house of cards. No way it can support that stock price."
My heart sank.
Jimmy continued, "Then I saw the news. My guess is, the real tech guru is hiding in a corner somewhere, contemplating the meaning of life. Am I right?"
I remained silent.
He knew everything.
"Send me your account number," his next message popped up. "Any problem that can be solved with money isn't a problem. And if it can't be solved, it just means you're not using enough money."
I managed a wry smile. "All my accounts are frozen. Besides, I don't even have a decent computer right now. Money's useless to me."
They hadn't just stolen my work; they had severed every possible avenue for a counterattack. Without a workstation, without server access, I had all the skills to slay a dragon but lacked even a rusty sword.
The other end was silent for a few seconds. Then, a message appeared that sent a jolt through my entire body.
"Who said you don't have a sword? Did you forget? In the empire you built with your own hands, the throne you made for yourself is still there."
My mind went blank.
"Evelyn, did you work yourself stupid?"
"The creator's backdoor to the Genesis system. You forgot?"
I felt the blood rush to my head, my fingertips tingling.
How could I have forgotten?
To protect against corporate espionage and external hacks, I had built a backdoor into the deepest layer of the Genesis system's logic. It was completely independent of all administrative controls and held the highest possible level of clearance.
Its activation key was a string of impossibly long, randomized code integrated with my personal biometric data. In the entire world, only I knew it.
Richard and Chloe thought that by deleting my admin account and revoking my privileges, they were safe. They thought that by taking my keys, they owned the house.
They had no idea that I was the architect of the entire building.
And at any moment, I could pull the foundation out from under it.

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