Chapter 1: The Weight of the Wreckage
“You have no future anyway. Tell them you were driving,” the voice of Irene erupted in the garage like a heavy stone shattering a quiet window.

Kendall Harris felt the sharp, manicured nails of her mother, Irene, dig deep into her shoulders, piercing through the fabric of her black blazer as if they were talons seeking a grip.

Behind them, the gray sedan sat crumpled across the sidewalk in the quiet neighborhood of Maple Ridge, its front bumper twisted into a mangled mess, a headlight dangling by a wire, and dark, unsettling stains speckled across the dented fender.

They definitely were not oil stains.

Her younger sister, Jasmine, stood beside the damaged car, wrapped in an expensive, pristine white wool coat, her makeup applied with flawless precision, though her lips were trembling with a mixture of rage and cold indifference.

She did not look like someone who had just committed a crime; she looked deeply offended that the harsh reality of the world had dared to touch her personal space.

“Mom, please, you need to let me go right now,” Kendall said, her voice remaining eerily calm despite the adrenaline surging through her veins.

That quiet, composed tone only served to enrage Irene further.

“Calm down? You think this is the time to be calm after the absolute disaster you have created tonight?”

Kendall looked her mother in the eyes and replied, “I did not create this disaster, and I certainly did not do anything to deserve this treatment.”

Just then, her father, Thomas, stumbled out from the side gate, his face dripping with nervous sweat even though the night air was crisp and biting.

“The patrol car is turning onto the street, I can hear the sirens,” he muttered, his eyes darting frantically between his two daughters. “We have to fix this story before they arrive here, or we are all finished.”

The arrangement, as her family liked to call it, had always followed the exact same script: Kendall took the blame for everything, and Jasmine got away without a single scratch on her reputation.

It had been this way since they were little girls playing in the backyard.

Jasmine was the golden child, the one who was perpetually social, the one who always appeared in family photos with bouquets of flowers, new designer dresses, and shiny school medals pinned to her chest.

Kendall was always known as the weird one, the difficult one, the one who supposedly dropped out of university, although no one in that household ever bothered to find out what she had actually done with her life afterward.

To her family, Kendall was still the major disappointment who left home at twenty and ended up working some mundane job at the courthouse, as if she were merely stamping papers behind a dusty window all day.

She never bothered to tell them that her full name appeared in high-level legal resolutions that attorneys across the country studied with immense care every single day.

It was not because she felt ashamed of her achievements or her career path.

It was simply because, years ago, she had come to the painful realization that her family did not want to know her at all; they only wanted to use her whenever it suited their needs.

“Jasmine took my car without asking for my permission,” Kendall stated, looking directly at her sister.

Jasmine let out a dry, condescending laugh that echoed against the garage walls.

“Oh, please, don’t be so dramatic about it. I only borrowed it for a quick run.”

“You took my vehicle after you had been drinking at the gala,” Kendall countered, her eyes scanning the damage.

Jasmine raised her chin high, her expression hardening into a mask of arrogance.

“You should be very careful about the words you choose to throw around, Kendall, because defamation is also a serious crime.”

Kendall looked at the broken headlight, then shifted her gaze to the dark, ugly stain on the cuff of her sister’s expensive white coat.

“Tell me the truth, who did you run over tonight?”

The air in the garage grew heavy as Jasmine’s face went pale for a fleeting moment.

Without warning, Irene stepped forward and slapped Kendall across the face with a resounding crack.

The sound echoed through the quiet street, and a neighbor in the house across the way peeked through their curtains for a second before retreating back into the shadows of their home.

“Do not talk to your sister in that tone,” Irene spat, her voice dripping with venom. “She got scared because she is young, and anyone in her position would have done the exact same thing.”

“Is the person you hit still alive, or did you leave them for dead?” Kendall asked, ignoring the stinging heat on her cheek.

Thomas clenched his jaw so tight that his neck muscles stood out like cords.