After our parents died, I raised my younger brother as my own—but on his 18th birthday, he gave me Mom’s old jewelry box and said, “There’s something she never wanted you to know.”

we knew if anything happened to us, she would swoop in with false claims and empty promises.

She would only stay near Lucas if there was money involved.

And once she realized there wasn’t, she would leave him alone.

I lowered the letter, my eyes burning.

We did the only thing we could.

“They knew,” I whispered. “They knew about her.”

“And gave us everything continue reading …