My Sister Stole the Wrong Billionaire

The last thing I remembered was his hands around my throat.

Not gentle. Not quick. He squeezed like he had all the time in the world, and I guess he did, because nobody was coming to save me.

Then — nothing.

Then — fluorescent lights buzzing above me, the smell of floor wax and boiled carrots, and a woman's voice calling a name I hadn't heard in fifteen years.

"Carmen? Carmen, honey, stand up straight."

My eyes snapped open.

The orphanage hall stretched out in front of me, long and narrow, with its peeling green walls and the row of metal folding chairs where the "presentable" young adults sat on sponsorship days. I was standing in line. My shoes were too small. My dress had a stain on the collar that I'd tried to scrub out with hand soap that morning.

I knew this day.

I knew it the way you know a scar — by touch, by memory, by the dull ache that never fully leaves.

This was the day the Morans came.

My hands were shaking. I looked down at them — thin, bony, eighteen years old. The phantom pressure around my throat pulsed once, twice, then faded like a bruise pressed too hard.

I was back.

"Carmen, stop fidgeting," Sister June hissed from behind me.

I couldn't answer her. My tongue felt thick. My lungs burned with air that tasted too clean, too real.

Three seats to my left, Hazel was already moving.

She had spotted Brad Moss the second he walked through the door — tall, sandy-haired, early thirties, with a smile that made every woman in the room soften. He wore a navy blazer and carried a gift bag with a stuffed rabbit poking out the top. The perfect picture of a kind, wealthy man looking to sponsor a ward and change a young life.

Hazel smoothed her hair, pinched her cheeks for color, and intercepted him before he'd taken five steps.

"Hi! I'm Hazel. Are you here to sponsor someone? I have top grades in all my classes. Do you want to see my transcripts?"

Her voice was syrup. Bright, sweet, calculated.

Brad laughed — warm, easy. "Well, aren't you something."

Behind him, almost invisible in his shadow, stood a woman in a dove-gray coat. Eleanor Moran. She watched Hazel with a quiet, measuring expression, her gloved hands folded over a small clutch purse.

Nobody noticed Eleanor. That was the trick of Brad Moss — he filled every room he entered, and the people beside him disappeared.

But I noticed her. This time, I noticed everything.

Hazel tugged Brad's sleeve. "Are you taking a ward? I've always wanted a real benefactor. A real family."

Eleanor's mouth thinned.

"Hazel," Sister June called out, a warning in her tone. "Mr. Moss and Mrs. Moran are here together. Don't be rude."

Hazel didn't even glance at Eleanor. She kept her eyes locked on Brad, her fingers curled around his wrist like she'd already claimed him.

"I changed my mind. Is that a crime?" Hazel said, tossing the words over her shoulder at Sister June. Then, softer, to Brad: "I just like you better."

Something shifted in Eleanor's face. Not anger — something colder. Dismissal.

She stepped away from Brad and Hazel, her gaze sweeping the line of older girls. It passed over two others, a girl clutching a book, and then landed on me.

I held still.

"What's your name?" Eleanor asked.

"Carmen."

"How old are you, Carmen?"

"Eighteen."

She studied me for a long moment. I must have looked half-feral — too-thin wrists, dark circles under my eyes, that stained collar. But Eleanor Moran didn't look at the stain. She looked at my face, and whatever she found there made her crouch slightly until we were closer to eye level.

"I can give you a home," she said. "A real one. A place in my family. Would you like that?"

Her voice was steady. No sweetness, no performance. Just a fact, offered plainly.

In my first life, I had hesitated. Hazel had swooped in, changed her mind at the last second, and grabbed Eleanor's hand instead, leaving me with Brad Moss and his warm smile and his gift-bag rabbit.

That rabbit sat on my bed for three years before I understood what Brad really was.

Not this time.

"Yes," I said. "Please."

Eleanor extended her hand. I took it.

Her glove was soft. Her grip was firm. I held on like the floor might open beneath me.

Across the room, Hazel noticed. Her head turned, her smile faltering for just a second before she recovered. She released Brad's wrist and walked toward me, her shoes tapping against the linoleum.

She leaned close. Her breath was warm against my ear.

"Enjoy your new life, Carmen. This time, you're the one who will suffer."

She pulled back, her face arranged into a look of pity so convincing that Sister June smiled at her from across the hall.

I stared at Hazel's satisfied expression — the slight lift of her chin, the gleam in her eyes that said she'd won.

I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing.

The bruises around my neck from my last life phantom-throbbed. She thought she dodged a bullet. She just swallowed a bomb.

Brad Moss, with his easy laugh and his gift-bag rabbits. Brad Moss, who locked doors from the outside and checked your phone and told you no one would ever believe you. Brad Moss, who wore kindness like a costume and cruelty like a second skin.

Hazel had just wrapped her own fingers around his hand and pulled him toward her.

Good.

Eleanor guided me through the front doors and into the gray afternoon. A black stretch car idled at the curb, its engine humming low. A driver in a dark suit stepped out and opened the rear door.

I climbed in. The leather seat was cold against my bare legs. Eleanor settled beside me, pulling her gloves off one finger at a time.

"You'll have your own room," she said, not looking at me. "There are rules. You'll learn them."

"Yes, ma'am."

The car pulled away from the curb. I turned and looked through the rear window.

Hazel stood on the orphanage steps, one hand raised in a wave, Brad Moss beside her with his palm resting on her shoulder. She was smiling — wide, triumphant.

My stomach turned over. Not from fear. From the memory of what that hand on the shoulder became behind closed doors.

I faced forward. Pressed my palms flat against my knees to stop the trembling.

Eleanor said nothing. The city slid past the tinted windows — gray buildings, bare trees, a sky the color of old dishwater.

The car turned onto a long private drive lined with iron lampposts. At the end, the Moran estate rose up behind a wrought-iron gate — stone walls, dark windows, ivy crawling up the east wing like veins.

The gate swung open. The car rolled through.

I hadn't even drawn a full breath when tires screamed against gravel behind us.

A black SUV braked hard just outside the gate, close enough that the driver jerked our car to a stop. Eleanor's hand shot out, steadying herself against the seat.

"What on earth —"

The SUV's window slid down.

The face behind it was sharp-boned and pale, with dark eyes that held absolutely nothing warm. A jaw clenched tight enough to crack teeth. He couldn't have been older than twenty-four, but he looked at me like I was something that had crawled onto his property uninvited.

Alexander Moran.

The heir everyone in the orphanage whispered about — violent, cold, half-feral himself.

He didn't blink.

He just stared, his gaze pinning me through the glass like a moth to a board.

The gate groaned shut between us, and I realized my fingers had gone white around the edge of the seat.