Gallant

Rejected Heiress: My Heartless Family's Regret

Cassandra

For seventeen years, I was the pride of the Carlisle family, the perfect daughter destined to inherit an empire. But that life ended the moment a DNA report slid across my father’s mahogany desk. The paper proved I was a stranger. Vanessa, the girl sobbing in the corner, was the real biological daughter they had been searching for. "You need to leave. Tonight. Before the press gets wind of this. Before the stock prices dip." My father’s voice was as cold as flint. My mother wouldn't even look at me, staring out the window at the gardens as if I were already a ghost. Just like that, I was erased. I left behind the Birkin bags and the diamonds, throwing my Centurion Card into a crystal bowl with a clatter that echoed like a gunshot. I walked out into the cold night and climbed into a rusted Ford Taurus driven by a man I had never met—my biological father. I went from a mansion to a fourth-floor walk-up in Queens that smelled of laundry detergent and struggle. My new siblings looked at me with a mix of fear and disgust, waiting for the "fallen princess" to break. They expected me to beg for my old life back, to crumble without the luxury I’d known since birth. But they didn't know the truth. I had spent years training in a shark tank, honing survival skills they couldn't imagine. While Richard Carlisle froze my trust funds to starve me out, my net worth was climbing by millions on an encrypted trading app. They thought they were throwing me to the wolves. They didn't realize they were just letting me off my leash. As the Carlisles prepared to debut Vanessa at the Manhattan Arts Gala, I was already making my move. "Get dressed. We're going to a party."

Modern Modern Revenge Drama Revenge Female-centered

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"Breathe. Just breathe, Teryn..."

I chanted that in my mind. Not more than a few feet away, I could hear the wet sucking sounds as the monster drank from the girl beside me. His neck was nestled against her throat, pale white hands holding her still.

The girl whimpered but she did not scream. She knew better than that. She knew it would do her no good.

We had been in the cabin of the boat crammed together like sardines in a can, for what I thought was three days. I was only aware of the passing of time because of the light coming through the cabin's only window that was above my right shoulder.

During moments like these, I would stare out that window and pretend that I was an entire galaxy away. The sounds of the waves lapping against the side of the boat took me away and the cries of the gulls over head always distracted me. But there was nothing to see now; just the empty blackness, cut only by a thin stream of silver moonlight. The waves made no sound. There were no seagulls flying above us. Just the sound of the girl dying next to me.

One feeble hand brushed against my feet and before I could stop myself I turned to look at her. I regretted it immediately. The look in her eyes broke me.

I knew that she had blond hair but I couldn't see it in the darkness. The feeble light only illuminated her dark brown eyes and there was so much fear in them. All I could see of our captor was his pale hands gripping her shoulders and his short, dark hair.

There had been sixteen of us; sixteen girls originally at the bottom of this boat three days ago but the monster, the vampire had an insatiable hunger. He came down here in the middle of the night to feed. The first girl he fed from, Tiffany I believe her name was, with bright red curls, screamed so loudly when he bit her that it woke the rest of us up. He crushed her ribs with a single blow to her chest, collapsing her lungs instantly and she couldn't scream anymore. He drank Lily, the brunette sitting next to Tiffany, dry when he was done with the red head. None of the girls ever screamed again after that. After Tiffany and Lily, he came for another brunette name Clarice and then a raven haired girl name Opal.

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