“After years away, I returned to the Whitley Manor for one thing: my dead mother's ruby necklace. I found it clasped around the pale, undeserving neck of my father's new, pregnant wife. But when I put a knife to her throat to take it back, my own family turned on me. My father and grandfather didn't see a daughter defending her mother's memory; they saw a street thug threatening their precious new heir. They accused me of shaming their name and threatened to cut me off completely. To break my will, my father let my younger brother get arrested, hoping I'd come crawling back. Then, they summoned me to the hospital for my grandmother's "heart attack," where my father raised his hand to strike me for simply speaking the truth. He screamed that I was a monster, a cold-blooded killer. The raw hatred in his eyes told me everything. I wasn't his daughter anymore; I was just an obstacle to his new, happy family, a ghost he desperately wanted to erase. After their final pathetic performance, I turned my back on them forever. The Whitley name and its blood-soaked money meant nothing to me. I thought I was walking away alone, but as the hospital elevator doors closed, my brother Julian forced his way in. He had finally seen their masks, and he chose to follow the monster.”