Chapter 2

The slap sounded loud, but it didn't actually do any harm.

After all, I'm old, and I wobble just taking a few steps.

Louisa, though, acted as if she'd been gravely insulted. She grabbed my hair and slammed my head against the wall beside us.

"Don't you dare mention my mom!"

Louisa defending her mother gave me a little comfort.

Life in the orphanage had been hard.

Maybe she'd only grown up so loud and brash in order to protect herself.

Once we returned to the Sanchez family, I would hire the best etiquette tutor for her and give her every bit of care and love.

I would do everything I could to make her a worthy heir to the Sanchez family.

But the next second, the words out of her mouth sent me plunging into an ice pit.

A cold snort came from her nose, and Louisa's eyes filled with heavy contempt and disgust as she spoke.

"Let me tell you the truth. My mom was a top-grade slut, a piece of garbage!"

"She had the life of a pampered rich heiress and threw it away to elope with some blond lowlife!"

"It's bad enough she debased herself, but she dragged me down so I couldn't have a good life either."

"My dad was a top-grade idiot too! My mom was already pregnant with his kid, so what did it matter if he left her behind?"

"Once I was born, wouldn't the Sanchez family come begging him to marry that slut? Maybe even the whole Sanchez fortune would have to go to the two of us, father and daughter!"

Louisa's eyes were full of longing for the Sanchez family's enormous wealth.

I could hardly connect her with the girl who used to fuss over me so warmly.

Perhaps this was her true face.

A deep disappointment cut through my heart, and I told her with a cold laugh.

"I'm afraid your little scheme is going to fall through."

"After all, the Sanchez family won't invite a wolf into their home!"

Louisa let out a snicker.

"Heh, who do you think you are? You think you're fit to discuss Sanchez family business?"

"I'm not afraid to tell you—the people the Sanchez family sent to pick me up are already on their way."

"Once I become the true daughter of the Sanchez family, dealing with a blind old thing like you will be as easy as squashing an ant!"

As if something had occurred to her, Louisa let go of my hair and looked around.

But she never saw the luxury car she'd been imagining.

Instead, she spotted a very dated sedan parked at the orphanage gate.

Frowning, unable to tell it was a rare, one-of-a-kind luxury car worth tens of millions, she walked up to it, meaning to have someone move the beat-up thing.

Only to find the driver wasn't inside.

As the time the Sanchez family had promised to come for her drew closer and closer, and still no one from the family appeared, Louisa grew agitated.

She kicked me hard in the shin.

"I knew it! Nothing good ever comes of running into a jinx like you!"

"If you make me miss becoming the young lady of the Sanchez family, you'll be the first one I kill!"

My lower leg snapped instantly, and cold sweat poured down my forehead like rain.

I'd had surgery on that leg only six months ago, and the doctor had specifically told me not to move around for a full year.

If not for wanting to see, at long last, the great-granddaughter I'd been apart from for eighteen years, I never would have gone out.

I never dreamed that the moment we met she would humiliate me, and raise her hand against me again and again.

My heart went cold all the way through.

Not wanting to tangle with Louisa any longer, I laid my cards on the table.

"Is it at all possible that I am the Sanchez family's..."

Before the words "great-grandmother" could leave my mouth, a sleazy male voice rang out behind us.

"What's wrong, Louisa? Who's got no eyes in his head, messing with you again? I'll hack him to death!"