The Foolish Heiress Strikes Back
Under the violet crystal chandelier, Winston raised his champagne flute, a faint smile playing on his lips. Four graceful women laughed around him, their silken voices mingling with clinking glasses, perfume and desire weaving an intoxicating web. He had always relished this sense of control—money, power, beauty—all within his grasp.
Until she appeared.
A black silk gown trailed behind her, a mask concealing half her face. Only her eyes were visible—eyes that mirrored the ghost from his childhood photo album. He couldn’t explain the sudden pull in his chest, only that his soul felt struck by something deep and irreversible. That night, in the penthouse suite, he lifted her veil and kissed her—but as his lips met hers, a flicker of unease flashed through his mind. Her features… too familiar.
Morning light stabbed through the curtains.
Only a single pearl earring remained on the satin pillow, gleaming coldly. He sat up sharply, the haze of alcohol still clinging to him, yet his memory cut through like a blade—last night’s passion, her whispering “Ah-Wen,” the pet name only his sister ever used.
“Ian!” he roared. “Pull all surveillance footage from last night! And find out who that woman is!”
The assistant entered, pale, clutching a file. “Sir… we can’t trace her at all. But the hotel registration was signed with your mother’s handwriting—exactly as it was twenty years ago. And…” He hesitated. “The maternity ward just sent over a report. That woman had a prenatal checkup this morning. She’s seven weeks pregnant.”
Winston’s pupils contracted violently.
That night, the family estate summoned him in secrecy. His father sat in shadow, fingers tracing a yellowed photograph: a five-year-old boy holding the hand of a little girl in a red dress, standing before a rose garden. “Your sister didn’t die,” the old man rasped. “In the fire twenty years ago, they switched the body. She survived—taken away, tormented… Now she’s back. For revenge.”
“Revenge?” Winston sneered. “So she seduced me on purpose? Used my blood to carry my child—to destroy the Winstons?”
Before the words fully left his mouth, the door opened.
She stood there, her belly still flat, her gaze sharp as ice. Behind her loomed the head of a rival conglomerate—the true mastermind behind the arson that nearly wiped out their family.
“Brother,” she whispered, her voice soft as falling snow. “Tell me—will this child be our bloodline… or proof of your crime?”
Sirens wailed in the distance. She turned to flee, but stumbled on the threshold. Blood seeped down her gown, staining the carpet crimson.
Winston lunged forward, catching her. His hands trembled too badly to hold the phone. The voice on the line reported: “Sir, your sister is wanted for identity fraud, corporate espionage, and manipulation of the heir. Please cooperate with authorities.”
He looked into her eyes—filled with hatred, pain, and yet, beneath it all, a fragile echo of the trust he once knew.
As sirens pierced the air, he pulled her into his arms, ignoring the shock on every face, murmuring against her ear:
“No one touches her. Not you. Not anyone.”
Blood painted the hallway’s end. The game had begun—this time, he would tear the world apart in the name of love.