Chapter 4

Because the evidence chain wasn't complete, I was temporarily released.

But that kind of freedom was more suffocating than being locked up.

I was required to wear an electronic ankle monitor twenty-four hours a day and forbidden from leaving the city.

Parked outside my building was an unremarkable black car. I knew someone inside was watching me day and night.

My so-called "normal life" had become a cage with invisible bars.

On my first day back home, my aunt Grace showed up at my door.

She and Aurora were my only family. My parents had both died in an accident when I was in college.

Grace had never liked me. She always thought I had ulterior motives — nothing like Aurora, who was bright and accomplished and beloved by everyone.

The moment she walked in, she slapped me across the face.

"You ungrateful wretch! After everything your sister did for you — how could you do this to her?!"

My cheek burned.

"It wasn't me," I said.

"Still making excuses!" She jabbed her finger in my face. "The police are involved! It's all over the news! They're saying the kidnapper named you as the one who planned the whole thing! You've disgraced this entire family!"

"None of that is true."

"Then how come your stuff found at his apartment, Why did you go meet him? You think I don't know — you've been jealous of your sister your whole life! She's prettier than you, smarter than you, everyone loves her! You just hate seeing her shine!"

Grace's words were like knives, driving into my chest one after another.

Every old wound, every buried resentment — it all erupted at once.

I stopped trying to explain.

Because I knew it didn't matter. In Grace's mind, the verdict had already been decided.

I pushed her out the door and locked it behind her.

Even through the door, I could still hear her shrieking at me.

I slid down against the door until I was sitting on the floor, arms wrapped around myself.

I felt cold.

On the other side of the city, Ethan's interrogation of Vince had hit a dead end.

Vince admitted to carrying out the kidnapping but insisted that Stella had planned the whole thing.

Whenever Ethan pressed him for motives and details, he'd dodge the questions or give deliberately vague answers.

"Miss Stella is a brilliant woman. Her plan was flawless."

"Why did I help her? Maybe I felt sorry for her."

"She paid me. A big amount of it that I couldn't say no."

But when the police tried to trace the money, they came up empty.

Something about Vince's behavior didn't sit right with Ethan.

He didn't act like a criminal who would rat out his accomplices just to get a lighter sentence.

He acted more like a performer on a stage — someone who savoring the pleasure of manipulating everyone like puppets on a string.

Ethan's certainty began to crack.

That evening, he called me.

It was the first time he'd reached out since my release.

"Stella, I don't care what you're thinking right now, or what you're planning to do. I'm warning you — don't make any moves." His voice was dead serious. "Don't try to investigate this on your own, and don't go anywhere near anyone involved. You're now under strict surveillance. One wrong step and you'll be in far worse trouble."

His words sounded like a warning. But they also felt like a roundabout way of protecting me.

Like he was trying to tell me not to walk into a trap someone had already set.

But I couldn't take it anymore.

I wasn't going to just sit there and wait for them to convict me of a crime.

I had to get my memories back.

I had to prove I was innocent.

After I hung up, I slipped past the surveillance camera at my door and left through the fire escape.

I had to go somewhere.

Somewhere that might help me find the truth.