Chapter 2

"Baby girl, what are you talking about..." Emily instinctively denied it, but the panic in her eyes gave her away.

"I'm not talking nonsense." Laura's gaze was ice-cold as she held up her phone. "You visited the orphanage in the slums where I lived thirteen years ago. Someone took a photo. Want me to zoom in for you?"

In the photo, a younger Emily stood in front of a run-down iron gate, holding a bag of fruit, her expression full of disdain.

Emily's face grew increasingly uncomfortable.

"You thought I was too dirty, fighting with stray dogs for food, so you didn't take me home." Laura's voice was completely flat. "But three years ago, you damaged your kidneys taking all those supplements. You secretly checked my blood type and found out I was a match. So you pretended you'd been desperately missing me, came to the slums and got down on your knees, and brought me back. But the whole time, all you ever wanted was my kidney."

Emily's lips trembled. The words she wanted to say were stuck in her throat.

"A difficult labor? I never expected you to be my mother, so I don't owe you anything. Emily, keep your failing kidney. I will never donate mine to you."

Emily's legs gave out and she collapsed to the floor.

Laura ignored her and continued. "Starting today, I'm leaving the Garcia family. We have nothing to do with each other anymore."

The moment those words landed, all three people in the room stopped breathing.

Was this really something Laura would say?

She was the one who cared most about family. She'd said countless times that she'd give her life for the people she loved.

"Laura, have you lost your mind?" An angry middle-aged voice suddenly came from the doorway. Laura's father, Charles Garcia, had arrived.

His face was dark. He stepped in and snapped, "Blood is thicker than water! How can you just walk out like that?"

"Blood is thicker than water? Then which one of you has ever bled for me?"

Laura laughed instead of getting angry.

After being reborn and seeing their faces again, she'd already started to feel sick.

And now, her patience was completely gone, and her anger was rising.

"When you brought me back, you gave me a few bags and some clothes — and that was only because I agreed to donate my kidney to Emily!"

Laura's voice was sharp and clear, every word hitting hard.

"Then Ella said she liked those things and took all of them. I cooked for you, took care of the household, and you all just treated me like a servant like it was the most natural thing in the world."

Laura also had three older brothers, but from the very beginning, each of them had made it clear, in one way or another, that Ella would always be their real sister.

Laura should never even think about taking Ella's place.

"I was Ella's ghost illustrator for two years. Each painting sold for thousands of dollars. Did anyone ever give me a single cent?"

Before she could go on, Charles suddenly roared and cut her off. "You—"

"Laura, I'll give you money, I'll give you everything I have!" Ella immediately burst into tears. "Please forgive me, okay?"

"Enough!" Charles spat in disgust. "Raised in an orphanage and it shows. You're making a scene over a little money!"

"You're right, I have no manners, and I hold grudges." Laura nodded. "So I'm not just cutting ties with you — I'm taking back every painting I made for Ella."

With that, she turned and walked toward the sunroom.

It was a beautiful space, supposedly Ella's personal studio, which journalists had photographed many times.

In reality, it was just where Laura's finished paintings were displayed.

The place where Laura actually painted was a small room in the basement.

Ella screamed, "Laura, what do you think you're doing?"

Laura pushed open the sunroom door, grabbed a bottle of turpentine from the table, and poured it over the canvases without a second thought.

Paint began to bleed and run across the surfaces.

"Your paintings?"

"Stop—" Ella lunged at her. Laura spun around and hurled black paint straight at her face.

"Ahh — my eyes!" Ella screamed and crumpled to the floor.

Laura picked up a utility knife and drove it into a canvas, slashing hard across it.

The canvas tore with a sharp ripping sound, split in two.

One... two... three... She sliced every canvas to pieces. Shredded fabric and smeared paint fell to the floor in a mess.

"These paintings are yours only if I give them to you. If I don't, they're garbage."

She dropped the knife on the floor, stepped over the wreckage, and walked out without looking back.

"Laura!" Charles's voice cracked as he bellowed after her, his whole body shaking with rage. "If you walk out that door today, don't you ever come back!"

"Fine by me." Laura agreed without hesitation, her eyes bright with a genuine smile. "I'll hold you to that. Don't you dare regret it!"

She didn't even grab her phone charger before she left the Garcia Manor.

Every extra minute in that place made her sick.

She had once wanted so desperately to have a family. But now, she knew she could build one herself.

She actually had a small apartment in Silverlight City, bought with money she'd earned from her paintings. At this point in her previous life, she still hadn't told anyone in the Garcia family about it.

And thank goodness for that.

Free from the Garcias at last, she even slept better than she had in years.

She woke up the next morning and checked her phone, and there was Ella's name on the trending list again.

#Ella AI Deepfake

She tapped on it. Ella's manager had already released a statement saying the video was AI-generated and that someone was deliberately trying to smear her.

Ella had also posted, a soft-focus photo with the caption: [See you in July.]

In July, Ella was holding an art exhibition. Tickets had already sold in the thousands.

She was also set to unveil her latest work at the show — the painting partially visible in the photo.

It was a piece Laura had painted for her. Ella had cropped it and layered it with heavy filters, giving it a genuinely mysterious feel.

But who would have guessed that painting was now completely destroyed, reduced to a pile of trash?

Press releases about the exhibition had been flooding every outlet, and the Garcia family had bought up plenty of trending spots to hype Ella's upcoming work to the skies.

They'd even invited prominent figures from business and politics to the unveiling, along with several top celebrities.

If Ella couldn't produce the paintings, her career in this industry was finished.

That would be a real, permanent scandal.

The thought made Laura laugh out loud.

She genuinely wanted to see how Ella would paint a replacement.

Just then, her friend Lena Smith called. "Laura! You finally stopped putting up with her?"

Laura raised an eyebrow. "How do you know? I haven't announced anything yet."

Lena laughed loudly, then sent over a few screenshots. "A mutual friend in the industry just sent me these. Someone's offering serious money for a ghost painter to copy some paintings. I took one look and thought — isn't that your style?"

Laura looked at the images and understood immediately.

They were all paintings she had destroyed yesterday.

Ella had taken photos of them before. Now she was trying to find someone to copy them from the photos, pass them off as the originals, and get through the July exhibition without anyone noticing.

"Interesting." Laura saved all the screenshots. "This is solid evidence, and it's fresh."

Just then, Joseph called.

Laura raised an eyebrow, but answered anyway — and hit record.