Chapter 1 - My Sister Came to Kill Me in the Dress I Bought With the First Script She Stole—But Someone Unexpected Heard Me After the FallThe night my sister came to kill me, she wore the red dress I had bought with the first check from the first screenplay she ever stole from me.
I remember that detail because, by then, almost everything else had been taken away.
My phone.
My name.
My freedom.
My career.
Even the right to tell people I wasn't insane.
The private psychiatric facility sat in the hills outside Los Angeles, hidden behind eucalyptus trees and a twelve-foot stone wall.
My brothers had called it a wellness center when they signed the papers committing me there.
The nurses called it Willow Ridge.
I called it the last place people sent a woman after they had taken everything valuable from her and still needed her silence.
At eleven forty-three that night, my door opened.
Chloe stepped inside.
She was twenty-seven, beautiful in the soft, expensive way magazines loved.
Champagne-blond hair.
Delicate diamond earrings.
Pale red lipstick.
And my dress.
For a moment, I almost laughed.
“You kept it,” I whispered.
Chloe glanced down.
Then she smiled.
“You always did have good taste.”
I had lost twenty pounds in four months.
My wrists looked fragile against the hospital blanket.
Outside, rain streaked the window.
Inside, my half sister pulled a chair beside my bed and crossed her legs as calmly as if we were meeting for brunch.
“You shouldn't be here,” I said.
“Neither should you.”
My throat tightened.
She leaned closer.
“Victor's company went public this morning.”
I stared at her.
“Hale Meridian?”
“Three-point-two-billion-dollar valuation.”
She watched my face carefully, hungry for pain.
“And Leo?”
Chloe's smile widened.
“Won another award last night.”
Of course he had.
My younger brother had built his entire career on characters I created for him.
Every wounded soldier, every grieving father, every charming criminal, every impossible hero audiences had fallen in love with had first existed in notebooks under my bed.
And Chloe had put her name on them.
At first, I had allowed it.
That was the shameful part.
I had told myself I was protecting my family.
Victor needed scripts to save the entertainment division of our father's dying company.
Leo needed one great role after three humiliating failures.
Chloe had begged to submit my first screenplay under her name because Victor refused to read anything I wrote.
Just once, she'd promised.
Then once became twice.
Twice became five years.
By the time I demanded my name back, Chloe was America's newest celebrated screenwriter, Leo was a household name, and Victor's company was worth hundreds of millions.
I was merely Serena Hale.
The difficult sister.
The jealous sister.
The unstable sister.
Eventually, the dangerous sister.
Chloe reached into her purse.
“I wanted you to hear one more thing.”
She played a video.
Victor stood on a stage beneath gold lights, holding a champagne glass.
“I especially want to thank my sister Chloe,” he told an applauding crowd.
“Her extraordinary writing changed this company.
“Without her, Leo wouldn't have become the actor he is, and I wouldn't be standing here tonight.”
Leo stepped beside him.
“Our family wouldn't be where we are without her.”
Someone in the audience shouted, “What about Serena?”
Leo's expression hardened.
“Serena hasn't been part of this family for a long time.”
Laughter rippled through the ballroom.
Then Victor raised his glass.
“Chloe is our sister.”
The video ended.
I realized I was crying only when Chloe wiped one tear from my cheek with her thumb.
“See?” she whispered.
“Nobody misses you.”
I slapped her hand away.
Her smile vanished.
“You stole those scripts.”
“And?”
“You turned them against me.”
“They wanted to believe me.”
“You framed me.”
“You made that embarrassingly easy.”
My hands curled around the blanket.
Months earlier, Chloe had assaulted a pregnant woman during a drunken argument at a private club.
The woman had lost her baby.
Chloe knew the victim's family had enough money and lawyers to destroy her public image, so she begged me to take responsibility.
She promised that if I did, she would finally confess the truth about my screenplays to Victor and Leo.
I agreed.
One last sacrifice for my brothers.
Instead, they believed the worst version of the story.
Victor called me reckless.
Leo called me poisonous.
When I tried to tell them Chloe had lied, she cried.
And they believed her tears over my words.
Then came anonymous statements about my mental health.
Then canceled accounts.
Then a forged report.
Then Willow Ridge.
Now Chloe sat beside my bed as if visiting the grave she had already purchased.
“Why?” I asked.
“You already have everything.”
“No.”
For the first time, something cold and ugly showed behind her eyes.
“You still own twenty-two percent of Hale Meridian.”
I went still.
“Victor controls your voting rights while you're hospitalized, but if you die...”
She let the sentence fade.
Understanding came slowly.
“You inherit through Dad's trust.”
“Eventually.”
“You're not adopted.”
Her smile returned.
“There she is.
“My brilliant sister.”
I stared at her.
Our father had died six years earlier.
For as long as I could remember, Chloe had been introduced as the orphaned daughter of our mother's former housekeeper, Denise Mercer.
After Chloe's mother became ill, my parents had taken her in.
That was the story.
Chloe leaned near my ear.
“Dad was my father too.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“My mother wasn't just the housekeeper.”
I could barely breathe.
“Our father cheated on Mom.”
“For years.”
“And Victor knew?”
“No.
“Neither of your precious brothers knows.”
She stood.
“That's the funniest part, Serena.
“You spent your whole life trying to make them love you.
“I only needed a few years to make them choose me.”
She walked toward the window.
I saw her hand close around the latch.
Suddenly, I understood why she had come after midnight.
“Chloe.”
She opened the window.
Cold rain blew inside.
“They'll say you had an episode,” she said.
“I fought.
“I screamed.
“Nobody came.”
My back struck the window frame.
“Victor will find out,” I gasped.
“No.”
“Leo will.”
“No.”
“Someone will.”
She smiled against the rain.
“They don't ask questions when the dead woman has already been called crazy.”
Then she pushed.
The last thing I heard was Chloe screaming my name for the cameras.
The last thing I thought was not that I wanted revenge.
It was something much sadder.
I wished I had stopped begging my family to love me before loving them destroyed me.
Then everything went black.
When I opened my eyes again, Victor was shouting.
“Serena, have you completely lost your mind?”
I blinked.
The ceiling above me was white.
Not hospital white.
Private-clinic white.
But something was wrong.
My body hurt.
My head throbbed.
And Victor was standing three feet from my bed.
“Where am I?”
He stared at me.
“You tell me.”
I tried to move.
My shoulder screamed.
“What happened?”
“You called security,” he said.
“I didn't.”
“You ran into the courtyard.”
“I didn't.”
“You fell down the stairs.”
I looked at him.
He looked terrified.
Not angry.
Terrified.
“Where's Chloe?”
His expression changed.
“Who?”
“My sister.”
He stared.
“Chloe isn't here.”
I swallowed.
“She was.”
“No.”
“She came into my room.”
He looked toward the nurses.
Then back at me.
“Serena, this is getting worse.”
Something didn't make sense.
I looked at my wrists.
No restraints.
No bruises from a fall.
Then I saw a tiny red light beneath the smoke detector.
A camera.
Someone had been recording.
I whispered:
“There's a camera.”
Victor turned.
“What?”
“In the room.”
One of the nurses immediately stepped forward.
“There is no camera.”
I pointed.
The red light vanished.
Victor looked at me.
For once, his expression wasn't pity.
It was fear.
That was when the doctor entered.
He was new.
I had never seen him before.
He looked at my chart.
Then at me.
“I believe you've been through a traumatic event.”
I stared.
“Who are you?”
“Dr. Adrian Vale.”
He gave Victor a measured look.
“I need everyone to leave.”
Victor hesitated.
“Doctor—”
“Everyone.”
He left.
The door closed.
Adrian sat beside me.
Then he quietly said:
“You're not in Willow Ridge.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“This is a private recovery facility.”
“Where?”
“Malibu.”
“Who owns it?”
He looked at the closed door.
“Someone who doesn't want Victor Hale to know you're alive.”
My heart stopped.
“What?”
Adrian leaned forward.
“Your fall was real.”
He paused.
“But you didn't fall the way they told you.”
He showed me a photograph.
The image was blurry.
A dark figure stood behind Chloe.
“Who is that?”
“I don't know.”
He turned the screen.
“But that person caught you before you hit the ground.”
I stared.
“Then why did I survive?”
“Because someone wanted you alive.”
My voice shook.
“Who?”
Adrian handed me an envelope.
Inside was a single note.
Serena,
Don't seek revenge.
Not yet.
Let them believe you are dead.
Let them destroy themselves.
And then take back everything they stole.
I stared at the handwriting.
May you like
I knew it.
My father's.
Related Stories
