“Smile, orphan,” my stepbrother sneered, filming as I scraped my mother’s ashes off the driveway. Both my parents had been killed, and my stepmother had just thrown me out. “Everything valuable stays,” she said. I left with a broken urn and a tiny brass key. They thought they had kept everything worth stealing. They never asked what that key opened—or whose name was on the deed.
My stepmother dumped my mother’s ashes into the rain, then gave me ten minutes to leave.
Behind her, my stepbrother filmed while I knelt on the driveway, gathering gray dust with my bare hands.
“Smile, orphan,” Blake said. “You’re finally independent.”
I was twenty-two.
Both my parents had been buried that morning.
They had divorced years ago but remained friends. Last Tuesday, they were killed outside my father’s accounting office. Police described it as a targeted attack.
My stepmother, Celeste, saw it as an opportunity.
