Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

The taxi stopped in front of the Parker mansion. Rain poured down, matching Olivia's mood as she looked up at the house where she had grown up. No longer home. Just a beautiful prison she had finally escaped.

She paid the driver and stepped out, not bothering with an umbrella. The cold rain soaked through her wedding dress, the expensive fabric clinging to her skin. She didn't care. The dress was ruined anyway, just like all their plans for her.

The front door opened before she reached it. Their housekeeper Rosa stood there, eyes wide with worry.

"Miss Olivia! Come in quickly before you catch death!" Rosa pulled her inside, fussing over her wet hair and ruined dress. "Your parents are waiting in your father's office. I've never seen him so angry."

Olivia could hear shouting from down the hall. Her father's voice boomed through the house, rattling the crystal chandelier above them.

"WHERE IS THAT UNGRATEFUL CHILD? AFTER EVERYTHING WE'VE DONE FOR HER!"

Rosa squeezed Olivia's hand, her eyes filling with tears. "Be strong," she whispered, then disappeared into the kitchen.

Olivia walked toward her father's office, leaving wet footprints on the marble floor. Each step felt heavier than the last. Twenty-six years of being the perfect daughter, only to throw it all away in one afternoon.

But she didn't regret it. Not for a second.

The office door stood half-open. Inside, her father paced back and forth like a caged animal. Her mother sat rigid in a leather chair, a glass of scotch in her hand though she rarely drank. Sophia huddled in the corner, still in her blue bridesmaid dress, eyes red from crying.

Olivia pushed the door open wider. The sound made them all turn.

"There she is," her father snarled, his voice dripping with disgust. "The girl who just destroyed our family name."

She stepped into the room, dripping water onto his expensive Persian rug. "Hello to you too, Father."

His face turned purple with rage. "How DARE you come back here with that attitude? Do you have ANY IDEA what you've done today?"

"Yes," she said simply. "I stopped myself from marrying a man who was sleeping with my sister."

Her mother flinched as if Olivia had slapped her. Sophia let out a choked sob from the corner.

"You HUMILIATED us in front of EVERYONE!" Her father slammed his fist on the desk so hard that her mother's scotch glass jumped. "Five hundred of the most important people in the city! Business partners! Friends! The entire Hughes family!"

"And that's what bothers you?" Olivia asked, surprising herself with how calm she sounded while her insides trembled. "Not that your daughter was betrayed by her fiancé and twin sister? Not that I was hurt?"

Her mother finally spoke, her voice tight. "Of course we care that you were hurt, Olivia. But there were better ways to handle this. Private ways."

"Private ways," Olivia repeated, understanding washing over her like ice water. "You knew."

The room went silent. Her father stopped pacing. Her mother looked down at her glass. Sophia's sob was the only sound.

"You knew about them," Olivia said again, her voice shaking now as the betrayal cut deeper. "You knew Nathan was cheating on me with Sophia."

"We suspected," her mother admitted, not meeting her eyes. "There were... signs."

The ground seemed to shift under Olivia's feet. Her own parents had seen the signs and said nothing. Let her walk toward disaster with a smile. The room spun around her as twenty-six years of trust shattered in an instant.

"Signs?" she whispered, her throat tight with unshed tears. "What signs?"

"It doesn't matter now," her father cut in. "What matters is fixing this mess you've created."

"Fixing it?" Olivia laughed, the sound broken and wild even to her own ears. "There's no fixing this."

"Of course there is." Her father's voice turned businesslike, the same tone he used in board meetings. "We'll release a statement saying the video was altered. A prank gone wrong. You were nervous about the wedding and had a breakdown."

"A breakdown?" She couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"Nathan's already agreed to forgive you. The wedding can be rescheduled for next month, once this blows over. A small, private ceremony...."

"Are you INSANE?" Olivia interrupted, her voice rising to match his earlier shouts. "I'm not marrying Nathan. Not next month. Not EVER."

Her father's eyes narrowed, cold and calculating. "You will do exactly as I say. The merger between Parker Industries and Hughes Global is too important."

"More important than your daughter's happiness? Than her life?" Olivia's voice cracked on the last word as she remembered Nathan's hands around her throat in that other life, the death they didn't know she'd experienced.

"Don't be dramatic, Olivia," her mother sighed, taking another sip of scotch. "Marriage isn't about happiness. It's about security, position, family alliances. You've always understood that."

Olivia looked at her, really looked at her for the first time. The perfect hair, the perfect clothes, the perfect mask hiding years of unhappiness. Was this what she would become? A hollow shell of a woman drinking scotch in the afternoon while her husband controlled everything?

"I'm not marrying him," she repeated, each word a stone dropping from her mouth. "He doesn't love me. He never did."

Her father stepped closer, looming over her. His cologne, expensive and suffocating, filled her lungs as he invaded her space. "You have two choices, Olivia. Return to Nathan and salvage what's left of this family's reputation, or get out of this house and never come back."

"William!" her mother gasped.

"I mean it," he continued, eyes locked on hers, pupils small with fury. "If you don't fix this, you're cut off. No money. No support. Nothing. We will erase you from this family as if you never existed."

His words hit her like physical blows. Erased. Forgotten. Unmade. The ultimate punishment for disobedience.

"How could you?" she whispered, searching his face for any sign of the father who once carried her on his shoulders at the beach. "I'm your daughter."

"You're a disappointment," he spat. "Everything I've done has been for this family. To secure our position. To build our legacy. And you destroyed it all in five minutes with that video."

From the corner, Sophia finally spoke. "Liv, please. Just tell everyone you made a mistake. We can go back to how things were."

Olivia turned to her, her twin, her betrayer. The face that matched hers now twisted with false concern. "How things were? You sleeping with my fiancé behind my back? Planning to continue even after I married him?"

Sophia had the decency to look ashamed, her gaze dropping to the floor. "It just... happened. We never meant to hurt you."

"LIAR." The word exploded from Olivia, making Sophia flinch. "You enjoyed hurting me. I heard you both laughing about it. 'Poor, sweet Olivia.' Remember those words, Sophia? YOUR words."

Tears streamed down Sophia's face, but Olivia felt nothing. No sympathy. No sisterly love. Just a vast emptiness where those feelings used to be.

Her mother stood, swaying slightly from the scotch. "Enough of this ugliness. William is right. You will apologize to Nathan and the Hughes family. You will say the video was fake, a jealous prank from a business rival. And you will proceed with the marriage as planned."

"And if I don't?"

"Then you are no longer our daughter," her father said coldly. "You will leave this house tonight with nothing but the clothes on your back."

The ultimatum hung in the air between them. Everything she'd ever known, security, luxury, family, or her self-respect. The choice seemed impossible, yet somehow easy at the same time.

"I need to get some things from my room," she said quietly.

Her father nodded, victory in his eyes. "Good girl. I knew you'd be sensible."

"I'm not choosing Nathan," she clarified, her voice stronger now. "I'm getting my belongings before I leave."

His face darkened again, triumph vanishing like smoke. "You're making a terrible mistake."

"No," she said, meeting his gaze without flinching. "I'm finally doing something right."

She turned and walked out, ignoring her mother's calls and Sophia's fresh tears. Up the grand staircase to her bedroom, leaving wet footprints and pieces of her old self behind with each step.

Her bedroom looked like a stranger's. Pink walls, stuffed animals she'd long outgrown but kept to please her mother, photos of Nathan and her at society events, all fake, all for show. Her stomach turned at the sight of his face smiling down from silver frames.

She grabbed the largest photo and hurled it against the wall. The shattering glass was the most satisfying sound she'd heard all day.

Olivia peeled off the wet wedding dress, letting it fall to the floor in a soggy heap. In her closet, past designer clothes she'd never chosen, she found an old backpack from college. She filled it with essentials: jeans, t-shirts, underwear, a few cherished books, the pearl earrings her grandmother gave her that her mother didn't know about.

From her desk, she took her laptop and the emergency cash she'd hidden inside an old teddy bear. Five hundred dollars saved from birthday checks. Not much but better than nothing.

She looked around the room one last time. Twenty-six years of memories. The bed where she'd cried herself to sleep after being told art school wasn't an option. The window seat where Sophia and she had once shared secrets before they grew apart. The vanity where her mother had taught her to apply makeup "properly" when she was twelve.

All of it meaningless now.

Downstairs, her father waited by the front door, arms crossed. "This is your last chance, Olivia. Once you walk out that door, there's no coming back until you agree to our terms."

Behind him, her mother dabbed at her eyes with a monogrammed handkerchief. Sophia was nowhere to be seen.

Olivia looked at the man who had controlled every aspect of her life for twenty-six years. Who would sacrifice her happiness for business deals without a second thought. Whose love had always been conditional.

"Goodbye, Father."

His jaw tightened. "You'll be back. When you're hungry and homeless, you'll come crawling back."

"Maybe," she admitted. "But I don't think so."

She stepped around him and opened the front door. Rain still poured outside, but somehow it looked inviting now. A cleansing. A baptism into her new life.

Her mother rushed forward, grabbing her arm. "Olivia, please. Where will you go? What will you do? You have no money, no friends outside our circle, nothing!"

Her words were meant to scare Olivia, to remind her how dependent she was. Instead, they made her more determined to leave.

For the first time in her life, she answered honestly. "I don't know. And that's okay."

Olivia pulled free from her mother's grip and stepped out into the rain, her backpack slung over her shoulder. The door closed behind her with a heavy thud. Final. Definitive.

The rain soaked through her clothes immediately, running down her face like the tears she refused to shed. No umbrella, no car, no plan. Just the clothes on her back, a few belongings, and five hundred dollars between her and starvation.

She walked down the long driveway of the Parker mansion, past manicured gardens and marble statues that had cost more than most people's homes. Water filled her shoes, chilling her feet with each step, but she kept moving forward.

At the gate, she turned for one last look at the beautiful prison that had shaped her. The place she'd once called home.

Lightning flashed, illuminating the enormous house against the dark sky. For a second, she thought she saw Sophia watching from her bedroom window, her face a pale oval in the darkness.

Then the gate swung shut behind her, and she stepped into the unknown.

Free, terrified, and completely alone.