Chapter 1

The day the company announced I was about to be promoted to lead the new project, my mother had a sudden heart attack, and in a panic I rushed her to the hospital.

By the time we got there she was already better. She handed me a bottle of water and said that without me, she might not have made it today.

I didn't think twice. I unscrewed the cap, took a mouthful, and spat it right back out.

Because it wasn't water. It was liquor.

I was about to ask why she'd handed me a bottle of liquor when the next moment I watched her pull out her phone and call it in.

“Officer, I want to report a crime. My daughter drove me to the hospital drunk. To keep her from making a bigger mistake, I have no choice but to turn my own child in!”

I stared at her, disbelief written all over my face.

I had never imagined she could do something like this to me.

“Ava Dickerson, I'm sorry. Your Uncle Lance said Nora needs this position. You're capable anyway. You'll find a better one down the road!”

I looked at her, my eyes full of disappointment. For the sake of her precious favorite daughter, she was actually doing this to me.

Later, after I got out, I ran and I never looked back. Even if she got down on her knees and begged me, I would never go back.

1

“Mom, I'm your own daughter!”

I looked at her, a tremor in my voice.

She only stared back with cold eyes, a chill in her tone. “Ava, I raised you to know better!”

“You have to learn to give way!”

“I told you long ago that Nora needs this position more!”

“But you wouldn't listen. You insisted on fighting Nora for it!”

“So now this is all I can do!”

I listened to her and laughed in spite of myself.

I knew exactly what Nora was capable of.

Which was nothing.

And back then, if my mother hadn't forced me to hire Nora, she never would have gotten onto our project team at all.

Yet now, for Nora's sake, she was throwing me away.

“Mom, do you have any idea? One phone call from you, and I don't just go to jail, I could lose my job too!”

“And once I'm out, I might never work in this field again for the rest of my life!”

I looked at her and said it plainly.

Hearing me, she came right back. “Your Uncle Lance already explained it to me!”

“You'll be held for a few days at most. What could possibly happen?”

“I just want you in there for a few days. Once the project's done, you'll be out!”

“Don't worry, your Uncle Lance told me. After you're out, Nora will be the project lead, and by then you can still go back to work at the company!”

The moment she said that, I gave up completely.

I knew that the woman in front of me didn't believe a single word I said.

Yet she swallowed everything Lance told her without question.

If that was how it was, what was left for me to argue?

All I could do was wait for the police to come and explain it to them.

“Ava, don't make me say it!”

Seeing me stay silent, she frowned and went on. “If you knew how to give way and let Nora be the project lead!”

“Would your mother ever have had to do any of this?”

“Nora calls you big sister. How could you snatch a position away from your little sister?”

When she said that, I laughed.

“Mom, a project goes to the one with the ability, not to whoever pulls these kinds of tricks!”

“And besides, do you really think that with me framed and locked up, Nora could actually run the project department?”