Not Your Real Biological Daughter

My boyfriend had been secretly planning a proposal, a fact the familys adopted golden girl gleefully leaked to me three days in advance.

I pretended I knew nothing.

Three days later, she dragged me to the grand event under the guise of a casual dinner.

I was just about to plaster on my best face of rehearsed shock when the man of the hour dropped to one kneenot in front of me, but right in front of her, under the blinding lights and the stares of Chicagos elite.

Caroline gasped, her manicured hands flying to cover her mouth.

"Oh my god, Mia... I had no idea he was going to ask me." She looked at me, her eyes wide and swimming with manufactured innocence. "You two have been so close lately, I honestly thought this was all for you..."

Spencer rose to his feet, towering over me. His gaze was entirely devoid of warmth.

"So what if you share the Kensington bloodline, Mia?" he said, his voice carrying just enough for the front row of guests to hear. "Caroline and I grew up together. I hope tonight serves as a wake-up call. Learn your place, and stop obsessing over things that will never belong to you."

Beside me, my best friend Harper was vibrating with rage.

"Are you seriously going to just stand there and take this?" she hissed.

Actually? Yes. I absolutely could.

When the three-carat oval diamond slid onto Caroline Kensingtons ring finger, the temperature in the room seemed to shift. Every gaze in the private ballroom pivoted toward me, heavy with pity and suffocating amusement.

"She really thought it was her. God, how embarrassing."

"If I were her, Id walk right into the lake. Humiliating."

"She had it coming. Everyone knows Caroline and Spencer belong together. She just uses her biological status to try and steal Carolines life."

Harper lunged forward, her heels clicking aggressively against the marble. I caught her by the wrist, pulling her back.

"They set you up, Mia! They are publicly executing you, and youre just taking it?" Harper whispered, her voice cracking with indignation.

"Why shouldn't I?" I whispered back.

I watched Spencer pull Caroline into a protective embrace, catching the smug, triumphant smirk she shot me over his tailored shoulder.

All I felt was a profound, bone-deep sense of relief.

The curtain is finally falling, I thought. I dont have to play a part in this psychotic familys stage play anymore.

Three years ago, when I first started working as a junior analyst at Kensington Enterprise, Arthur Kensington, the CEO, had called me into his office. I expected a reprimand. Instead, the ruthless billionaires eyes welled with tears.

"Victoria," he had choked out. "After all this time... youre finally willing to come home?"

He told me how I had run away after a massive fight, how his adopted daughter, Caroline, had been consumed by guilt ever since I left.

I had tried to explain. Over and over again.

I wasnt Victoria Kensington. My name was Mia Sullivan. It was right there on my W-2.

But he and his wife Beatrice had just stared at my face, their expressions hardening into a wall of absolute denial.

"If youre back, then enough with the tantrums," Arthur had said, deadpan. "Using a fake name? Really? Are you trying to sever ties with this family completely? Will you only be happy if we throw Caroline out onto the street? Shes lived with us for twenty years. Sending her away would be abandonment!"

That was the day I learned the great secret of the Kensington dynasty. They had a biological daughter who was found and brought home late in life, only to realize her parents heavily favored the adopted daughter they had raised. Even her childhood fianc, Spencer Croft, sided with the adopted girl. Three years ago, the real Victoria had a screaming match with the family, walked out into the Chicago winter, and vanished without a trace.

And I, apparently, was a dead ringer for her.

Back in the present, Spencer shielded Caroline with his body, playing the valiant knight.

"When you pulled your little disappearing act three years ago, Caroline nearly drank herself into an early grave out of guilt," Spencer sneered at me. "As long as you stop throwing these pathetic tantrums, I am still willing to honor our family's original arrangement and marry you. But the condition is this: you never make things difficult for Caroline again."

Three years ago, I had tried to quit my job to escape their collective delusion.

But Spencer had cornered me in the parking garage. He tossed a sleek black bank card onto the hood of my rusted Civic.

"Are you trying to drive Caroline insane again?" he had demanded. "Stay. Play your part. Theres three hundred thousand dollars loaded onto that card every single month."

Who walks away from that?

So, I became Victoria Kensington. I kept my head down, lived like a ghost in their sprawling Gold Coast mansion, and collected my hazard pay.

But Caroline was relentless. If she wasn't strategically throwing herself down a flight of stairs, she was slipping strawberries into her own smoothies knowing she was highly allergic, just to point the finger at me. Even with security cameras proving my innocence, no one in that house ever chose to believe me.

At three hundred grand a month, I wasn't earning a salary. I was accruing damages for emotional distress.

But now? Now they had stopped pretending. Which meant I could finally tender my resignation.

Under the watchful eyes of Chicago's high society, I smoothed my dress, walked right up to the newly engaged couple, and smiled. It was a genuine, radiant smile.

"Congratulations to you both," I said, my voice steady and clear. "I am truly so happy for you. I wish you nothing but a lifetime of joy. If youll excuse me, Im going to head out."

Caroline froze. The rehearsed tears vanished from her eyes.

Spencers brow furrowed in deep irritation. "Victoria, what kind of game are you playing now?"

Caroline quickly recovered, her eyes welling up instantly. "Sister, please don't be like this. I swear I had no idea Spencer was going to do this today. If youre really that upset... I can give the ring to you."

"Im good," I said, stepping back.

"No, I mean it!" Caroline lunged forward, grabbing my hand, trying to press the diamond into my palm. "Take it!"

"I said I don't want it!"

"Ah!"

I instinctively pulled my hand back, gently brushing her wrist away.

The ring slipped from her fingers and clattered onto the polished marble floor, the sound echoing like a gunshot in the quiet room.

Carolines eyes spilled over. "Do you really hate me that much, Victoria?"

"That is enough!" Spencer roared, yanking Caroline behind him.

"Who the hell do you think you are?" Spencers voice was venomous. "Yes, you share their blood. But Ive known Caroline for twenty years. If were talking about who truly belongs here, you are the outsider!"

Something inside me finally snapped. The sheer absurdity of it all bubbled up into my throat.

"You're absolutely right!" I yelled back, my voice echoing off the vaulted ceiling. "I am the outsider! Because Im not the real heiress! Im not Victoria Kensington! My name is Mia Sullivan!"

The entire ballroom plunged into a dead, suffocating silence.

My chest heaved as I tried to catch my breath.

Caroline pressed both hands over her mouth, a picture of tragic disbelief. "Sister... how could you say something so horrible just to spite me? How is a family supposed to survive this kind of cruelty?"

I stared at her, my eyes wide. "What?"

Were they entirely incapable of processing the English language?

I pointed frantically at my own face. "Look closely! Look at my face! I don't even look exactly like her! Victorias eyes are slightly larger than mine, and her earlobes sit lower. Just look!"

"Shut up!" Spencer shoved me hard by the shoulder. "I told you, I will not let you torment Caroline anymore."

Behind him, Caroline was practically vibrating with theatrical sobs.

The whispers from the crowd started up again, a low hum of judgment.

"What is she doing? She looks exactly like Victoria."

"Shes literally gaslighting everyone just to embarrass Caroline. It's a power play to make Spencer pity her."

Spencer glared at me, his jaw clenched so tight I thought his teeth might crack. "My patience with you has run out, Victoria. If you pull one more stunt to hurt Caroline, I won't show you an ounce of mercy."

...Was there a single sane human being in this zip code?

I threw my hands up in defeat. "Fine! You don't believe me? Lets go get a DNA test. Right now."

Spencer and Caroline both flinched.

I leveled a finger at Caroline. "Lets go back to the estate, swab Arthur and Beatrice, pay for a rush job at the lab, and get the results by tomorrow. Then you can see for yourselves whether I have a drop of Kensington blood in my veins!"

Spencer frowned, a flicker of genuine uncertainty crossing his perfectly sculpted features.

Even the guests looked unsettled.

"She wouldn't bluff about a DNA test..."

"Wait, is it actually possible she isn't Victoria?"

"She looks dead serious."

Spencer opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Caroline let out a devastating wail.

"I know Im just the adopted one!" she sobbed, backing away. "You don't have to humiliate me like this! You don't have to constantly remind me that Im not real family!"

She kicked the fallen engagement ring across the floor, covered her face, and sprinted toward the double doors. When a waiter tried to gently stop her, she shoved him aside with surprising force.

I stood there, utterly bewildered. "Wait, I wasn't talking about youah!"

A brutal force slammed into my chest, sending me stumbling backward in my heels.

Spencer stood over me, his face twisted in fury. "When does this end with you?!"

"Im not Victoria!" I shouted.

"Enough!" Spencer spun on his heel, sprinting toward the exit. "Caroline! Caroline, wait!"

Harper appeared at my side, staring at the doors. "Is brain damage a prerequisite for inherited wealth?"

"Apparently," I muttered, rubbing my shoulder.

I didn't linger. I walked straight out of the hotel and hailed a cab back to the Kensington estate.

I had made enough money. Regardless of whether they believed my identity or not, I was packing my bags and leaving tonight.

But the moment I stepped through the grand oak doors of the mansion, two massive security guards grabbed me by the arms.

"Mr. and Mrs. Kensington heard how you bullied the younger Miss until she ran away in tears," one of them said gruffly. "Theyve ordered us to lock you in the attic for three days to reflect on your actions."

"What? Wait! Im not Victoria! I swear to God! Let go of me!"

They dragged me up three flights of stairs. The heavy wooden door of the attic slammed shut. Click. The deadbolt slid into place.

I pounded on the wood until my knuckles bruised, screaming until my throat was raw. Nobody came.

Eventually, I slid down the door and pulled my knees to my chest in the dusty darkness.

Fine. Whatever. Three days. Id leave in three days.

But as the hours bled into a terrifyingly long night, I realized a fatal flaw in their punishment.

No one was coming to bring me food. Or water.

I lost track of how long I had been starving.

I didn't even have the energy to tap on the door anymore.

Three days. Not a single drop of water.

I was genuinely going to die up here, amidst forgotten oil paintings and mothballed chandeliers.

Then, a faint rustling sound. A squashed, plastic-wrapped croissant was shoved beneath the gap in the door.

I scrambled toward it, my hands shaking so violently I barely managed to tear the plastic open before shoving it into my mouth.

"It's me."

The whispered voice on the other side made me freeze.

"Caroline?" I croaked, my brow furrowing in the dark.

"I believe you," Caroline whispered, her voice stripped of its usual saccharine sweetness. "I believe you aren't Victoria. I can get you out of here, but you have to promise me one thing. You can never, ever come back."

I could have wept with joy. "I swear it."

"Swear on your life!"

"I swear on my life, my soul, whatever you want! I will never return to this house or look at a Kensington again!"

"Wait here. Im going for the master key."

Of all the ways I imagined this ending, being rescued by Caroline was not on the bingo card. She was a deeply twisted person, but in this singular moment, she was my savior.

She snuck me out through the service elevator, shoved me into a rideshare, and even paid for a room at a boutique hotel downtown, hauling my duffel bag up the stairs for me.

But the moment she unlocked the hotel room door and pushed me inside, my blood ran cold.

We weren't alone.

Seven heavily tattooed, massive men were waiting in the room, their arms crossed, staring at us with predatory grins.

Before my brain could even process the danger, Caroline shoved a heavy baseball bat into my hands. Then, in one fluid, violent motion, she ripped the collar of her own blouse down to her sternum, tearing the fabric.

She threw her head back and let out a bloodcurdling, throat-tearing scream.

"Im sorry, Victoria! Please! Please don't let them touch me!"

My jaw dropped.

Two of the men lunged forward, grabbing Caroline by the arms and dragging her toward the bed.

Before I could even lift the bat, the sound of frantic, pounding footsteps echoed down the hallway.

"Caroline!"

"My baby!"

Arthur, Beatrice, and Spencer burst through the door.

"Caroline!" Spencers eyes went completely feral. He shoved me into the wall so hard my teeth rattled, then launched himself at the lead thug, burying his fist into the mans jaw. "You want to die, you sons of bitches?!"

Arthur and Beatrice rushed to the bed, trembling as they looked at the red, angry scratches Caroline had just clawed into her own neck.

Beatrice turned to me, her face contorted in absolute hatred. "Victoria Kensington! She is your sister! How could you be this vicious? This evil?!"

"I" I dropped the bat as if it burned me.

Caroline collapsed into Spencers chest, weeping hysterically.

"Sister, if you wanted Spencer, I would have stepped aside! I would have given him to you!" she cried, burying her face in his shirt. "I know youre the real daughter. Everything in that house belongs to you. If you just asked, I would never say no. But why... why did you have to hire these men to ruin my purity? Did you just want Spencer to be disgusted by me? Did you want mom and dad to throw me away?"

She broke down into loud, choking sobs.

I was speechless.

I had vastly underestimated the depths of Carolines psychotic brilliance.

Arthur and Beatrice threw their arms around her, screaming at me over her shoulder. "How did we give birth to such a monster?! To use such a filthy, depraved tactic against your own sister... you aren't human!"

"You're all insane!" I screamed back, my vision blurring with rage. "I am not a part of your family! I just happen to look like her! I don't give a damn about Spencer, and she staged this entire thing!"

Spencer let out a dark, terrifying laugh.

"You think your little lies are going to save you now?" he snarled, stepping toward me. "Caroline is going to be my wife. I don't care what happens to her, she will always be my wife. You wanted to use gutter tactics to destroy her? Fine. Then Ill destroy you first." He snapped his fingers at his personal security team, who had just flooded the hallway. "Take her to the Croft meat-packing warehouse. Put her in the deep freeze."

My eyes widened in sheer terror. "What?"

Two men grabbed me by the elbows and dragged me toward the service elevator.

I thrashed wildly, kicking at their shins. "I am not Victoria! Run a DNA test! Let go of me! Please!"

Suddenly, the three hundred thousand dollars a month didn't seem like enough. It was pennies compared to the hell I was living in.

The industrial freezer was set to five degrees Fahrenheit.

I was wearing a thin cotton t-shirt and jeans. The second I hit the metal floor, my breath turned to thick white smoke.

The heavy steel door slammed shut. The mechanical thud of the external lock echoed like a death sentence.

I threw myself against the frosted metal, screaming until my lungs burned. "I'm not her! You have the wrong person!"

"Still acting?" Spencers muffled voice bled through the heavy door. "The biometric lock on this door is coded to Kensington family fingerprints. Keep pretending you aren't one of them, and you can freeze to death in there."

The sound of his dress shoes faded away into the cavernous warehouse.

Panic seized my chest.

"Spencer? Spencer!" I screamed, slamming my raw fists against the door. "I am not her! I can't open it! Im going to die in here!"

Only the low, mechanical hum of the refrigeration units answered me.

I collapsed into the darkest corner, curling into the tightest ball possible, blowing hot breath into my cupped hands.

But human heat is no match for industrial coolant.

Within an hour, I was violently shivering. Within two, the shivering stoppedthe deadliest sign of hypothermia. My eyelashes were heavy with frost. My thoughts began to slur together into a warm, dangerous haze.

Then, a sharp, electronic beep.

Click.

I dragged my numb body across the floor. Pushed.

The heavy door cracked open.

I tumbled out onto the concrete floor, gasping the ambient warehouse air like it was holy water.

But when I looked up... the corridor was entirely empty.

Whoever had opened the door was gone.

It took me an hour to stumble back to the Kensington estate, my lips blue, my fingers burning with returning circulation.

I pushed open the doors to the grand living room.

There they were. Sitting by the roaring fireplace. Beatrice was stroking Carolines hair while Arthur poured her tea.

Spencer was pacing, looking agitated. "Is that bitch still playing dead in the freezer? Have my guys drag her out here. Shes going to kneel and apologize to Caroline."

"No need," I rasped. "Im right here."

He froze, whipping around to face me.

A cruel, knowing smile spread across his face. "I thought you said you weren't Victoria Kensington? How did you open the biometric lock, then?"

I scanned the room. The entire Kensington staff and family were accounted for. I had no idea who had opened that door for me.

When I didn't answer, Arthur slammed his fist on the coffee table. "Caroline isn't related to us by blood. Of course she lacks a sense of security! It is our duty as parents to compensate her and protect her! But you are our flesh and blood. Nothing can change that. Why must you constantly fight her for our attention? Have you no shame?"

Beatrice stood up, delivering her ultimatum. "Get on your knees and apologize right now, or you are no longer a daughter of this house!"

"Deal!"

My voice cracked like a whip, startling all of them.

"Ill kneel. Hell, Ill bow my head to the floor!" I took a step forward, the remaining cold in my bones replaced by a searing, white-hot fury. "But since you are all so stubbornly, violently convinced that I am your biological daughter... where is my trust fund distribution?"

They stared at me, dumbfounded.

I let out a harsh, barking laugh. "Don't look at me like Im crazy. Everyone in Chicago knows Caroline gets an eight-figure dividend from the Kensington Enterprise every single year. Since Im your daughter... pay up."

I held out a trembling hand.

"I don't even want the full amount. Five million dollars. Cash transfer. Right now. The second it hits my account, Ill drop to my knees and apologize to whoever you want."

"You...!" Beatrice clutched her pearls, her face turning purple.

I didn't let her breathe. "What? You demand that I play the role of your dutiful daughter, but you refuse to give me a dime? You pour your entire family fortune into a girl with zero Kensington blood, and you preach to me about family ties?! Is that it?!"

Beatrices mouth opened and closed like a suffocating fish.

"You love to talk about how I'm your child," I sneered, pacing in front of them. "When have you ever treated me like one? What have you given me in the last three years, besides orders to bow down to your precious fake heiress, who holds the shares and the money?!"

Arthur and Beatrice exchanged deeply unsettled looks.

Even Spencer stared at me, slightly taken aback by the sheer venom in my voice.

"You give me nothing, and then you call me greedy!" I screamed. "You want me to be the bigger person? Pay me to be the bigger person!"

The room was dead silent. Only the crackle of the fireplace could be heard.

"If you aren't paying," I said, my voice dropping to a deadly whisper, "then don't you dare ask me to kneel. You couldn't afford it."

I turned on my heel toward the door.

"Stop." Arthurs voice was heavy with exhaustion. "Five million. I will wire it right now. And then you will kneel."

Pathetic.

These blind, foolish parents were literally paying their biological daughter off just to buy their adopted daughter a moment of satisfaction.

I turned back around. "Gladly. But while we wait for the wire to clear..." I pulled a crumpled document from my back pocket and tossed it onto the coffee table. "Sign this."

An unconditional, irrevocable deed of gift. Legally binding. Stating that under no future circumstances could this five million be reclaimed.

Arthur skimmed it, signed it with a heavy gold fountain pen, and threw it back at me. "Running wild in the streets for three years turned you into nothing but a mercenary."

I didn't care.

Because my phone buzzed. $5,000,000.00 successfully transferred.

I walked right up to Caroline, who was staring at me with wide, hateful eyes.

I dropped to my knees.

My forehead hit the plush Persian rug. Once. Twice. Three times.

"I am so sorry. I was wrong," I recited in a flat, deadpan voice.

I stood up, dusted off my jeans, and walked out of the mansion without looking back.

As I passed Spencer, he reached out, his mouth opening as if to say something. I didn't even blink. I walked right past him, leaving his hand hanging in the empty air.

As the heavy front doors closed behind me, a phone rang inside the house.

It was the Chicago Police Department.

"Mr. Kensington? Regarding the missing persons report you filed three years ago for Victoria Kensington? We found her."

"What did you just say?" Spencer, who had answered the house phone, thought he was hallucinating.

"Victoria Kensington," the officer repeated over the speaker. "The missing daughter. Shes at the precinct."

Spencer let out a scoff of disbelief. "Youve got the wrong file, officer. Victoria came back three years ago. She literally just walked out of our living room."

There was a pause on the line. "When did she come back?"

"Three years ago. Shes been living here."

"Thats impossible, sir," the officer said flatly. "Immigration records show Victoria Kensington has been living in Melbourne, Australia for the last three years. She only re-entered the United States three months ago."

Spencer stopped breathing.

He turned his head slowly. Arthur and Beatrice were staring at the phone, the blood draining completely from their faces.

"No..." Beatrice whispered. She stood up so fast the tea tray clattered to the floor, and bolted for the door.

Twenty minutes later, the family burst through the glass doors of the downtown precinct.

"Victoria! What kind of sick prank is this?!" Arthur roared.

But when they saw the girl sitting on the metal bench, everyone froze as if struck by lightning.

It was a girl with a face nearly identical to the one that had just left their mansion.

But this girl was terrifyingly thin. Her cheekbones were sharp, her clothes were threadbare, and her hair was a tangled, unwashed mess.

She emanated a cold, jagged edge that the girl in their house never had.

"This is impossible..." Beatrice whispered, turning to the desk sergeant. "Where did you find this girl? Shes an imposter. A lookalike. Our daughter was just with us..."