My eight-year-old sister was thrown out by our foster parents on Christmas Day. When I found her on the side of the road, she was wearing only thin pyjamas and shaking violently. ‘I found out their secret,’ she whispered. ‘They said that if I told anyone, we would disappear.’ At home, I saw the bruises still on her back. They thought I was weak and easy to silence. They were wrong. I was going to expose everything and make sure they ended up where they belonged: in prison.
The snow didn’t fall on Black Hill, it threw itself at it. The wind howled through the bare trees like a dying animal, sucking the warmth from the air until every breath felt like it was filled with glass.
Inside the Sterling estate, however, the climate was controlled, expensive and perfect.
The annual Sterling Christmas Ball was the culmination of the social calendar. Senators, tech moguls, and local celebrities mingled beneath twenty-foot ceilings adorned with crystal chandeliers. A string quartet played Vivaldi in the corner, slightly drowning out the clinking of champagne glasses and the polite, empty laughter of the elite.
I arrived late. My black SUV crunched along the long, winding road, its headlights cutting through the blizzard. I didn’t come here to celebrate. I came because my visit was mandatory. As the Sterligov family’s adopted ‘success’ — an orphan who became a cybersecurity genius — I was needed to complete the picture of their benevolence.
I approached the massive iron gates. They were closed. Strange. Usually they were wide open for valet service.
I entered my code. Access denied.
I frowned. Tried again. Access denied.
Then I saw it.
About fifty yards down the road, at the edge of the thick forest that bordered the property, lay a lump of snow. It was too small for a deer and too bright to be a rock.
It was a pink flannel shirt.
I crashed into the car park and rushed through the snowdrift to the car. The cold immediately seeped through my suit, but I didn’t feel it. My heart was pounding in wild panic.
‘Mia!’
She was curled up in a ball, half buried in snow. Her skin was a frightening marble white. Her lips were blue. She wasn’t moving.
I picked her up. She was light—too light for an eight-year-old girl. She felt like a frozen bird stuck on a branch. I went back to the car, threw open the back door, and laid her on the leather seat. I turned the heat up to maximum.
“Mia, look at me. Open your eyes.”
Her eyelids twitched. They were heavy, covered with ice. ‘Liam?’ she whispered. Her voice was like a broken reed.
‘I’m here. You’re safe. I’m taking you inside.’
Her eyes flew open, filled with terror. She grabbed my wrist with a strength that shouldn’t have been there.
‘No!’ she cried. ‘Please! Don’t take me back! Father said I was a bad investment. He said bad investments are liquidated.’
‘What?’
‘He threw me out,’ she sobbed, her teeth chattering so loudly that I thought they would break. ‘He said that if I went back to the door, the doctors would come. Doctors with needles.’
I looked at her. She was shaking violently, hugging her knees to her chest.
‘Did he hit you, Mia?’
She didn’t answer. She just pulled her knees closer to her chest.
Gently, trying to stop my hands from shaking, I opened the collar of her wet pyjamas. I expected redness. I expected a bruise.
I didn’t expect a brand.
There, on her shoulder blade, was a deep purple-black scar. It wasn’t random. It had edges, a ridged surface. It was shaped like a shield with an attacking lion.
The Sterligov coat of arms.
The heavy gold signet ring my father wore on his right hand. He hadn’t just hit her; he had struck her with the full force of his authority, branding her like cattle.
‘Oh God,’ I exhaled. The emotions that filled me were sudden and absolute. It was cold, like the snow outside.
‘I found the book,’ Mia whispered, pulling a piece of paper out of her pocket with a trembling hand. ‘I took a page. Is that why they hurt me?’
She pulled out a crumpled, wet page. I carefully unfolded it.
It wasn’t a page from a book. It was a printed document.
DEATH CERTIFICATE
Name: Mia Sterling
Date of Death: 25 December 2024
Cause: Accidental hypothermia
Today is 24 December.
They didn’t just throw her away. They scheduled her death.
Part 2: The Black Sheep and the Wolves
My phone rang. The screen lit up with a photo of the estate. ‘Home’.
I stared at him. Every instinct in my body screamed to go to the police station. But I knew better. Chief Miller was at a party, drinking my father’s whisky. The judge who signed the papers for my adoption — and Mia’s — was probably eating canapés.
If I went to the police, Mia would be ‘returned to her loving parents’ and I would be arrested for kidnapping.
I needed time. I needed evidence. To get it, I had to play the game again.
I answered the call.