Chapter 1

One AM, I was mopping the floor at the convenience store when I bumped into my own mother.

She was wearing a cashmere coat worth thousands, holding her two-year-old daughter's hand, picking out imported milk for her shopping basket.

Seeing my name tag, her smile froze.

"Give me your account number. I'll transfer you some money so you and your dad can get something decent to eat."

I pushed her hand away.

"No, thanks, Ms. Vance."

She frowned, looking at my twisted knuckles and the old scars on my palm.

"Where's your dad? Is he not taking care of you? At least tell me, I'll come pick you up."

I stared at her.

"He can't anymore."

"He's dead. Died three years ago."

She didn't believe me.

She said my dad was a master at playing the victim.

But soon after, she barged into my tiny rented apartment and saw Dad's memorial photo—

She shook my shoulders wildly.

"Where is he? He can't be dead!"

I shook her off.

"The night you spent eight million on a painting for Caleb Blackwood, my dad was biting through his lips in pain on his hospital bed."

"One less splurge from you, and his surgery would've been covered."

"And that card."

"The one you said had three hundred thousand in it, when I tried to withdraw it—"

"There wasn't a penny."