Jessie was used to darkness and tight spaces. She'd been locked up in closets for most of her chidlhood, so when she finally came to, she instantly recognized where she was.

A closet.

A warm, comfortable, dark closet.

All she could see was the thin line of light sneaking underneath the door. Maybe it was the familiarity of the space, but her mind stayed clear and she didn't succumb to panic even as she forced herself to remember how she'd gotten there in the first place.

She was out with Jimmy. It was going great. Even if he hadn't outright said it, at that moment she believed he loved her. Like truly loved her, not a crush, not a fling. The intensity of his feelings matched hers. Because yes, she was definitely in love with him.

With the way he handled everything, with how his words always seemed to mean something. How he'd instantly fought off her attackers, determined to keep her safe.

The way his kisses felt like fire.

And yet, he'd failed. Both of them had the moment whoever kidnapped her brought a gun into the equation. There was nothing either of them could've done about that. He was forced to let them take her and she was forced to let herself be taken just so that they could still live. Fortunately, as the men led her away, she didn't hear the sound of a gunshot. Which meant Jimmy was still alive and probably looking for her.

How long had it been since they'd put clorophorm over her mouth and knocked her out? Where had they even taken her?

Her temples throbbed, but she remained still, forcing her breaths to be even and filling. Wherever she was, she was alive and well. Nothing hurt except her head, but that was to be expected.

Trying to confirm the though, she wiggled her fingers, then her toes. Yep, she was fine. They hadn't hurt her. So it was time to figure out where she was and why.

She focused on any potential sounds. After a while, she picked up on muffled voices. Moving as silently as possible, she got into a crouching position and crawled her way towards the door. The voices became a tiny bit louder, but she still couldn't pick up on the words.

"This is getting out of hand!" a man suddenly said, voice high and panicky.

Jessie frowned. It couldn't be.

"No, it's not," a woman answered, her tone clipped. "Just stick to the plan and it will all be well."

She refused to believe it. But no wonder the closet felt so familiar. She'd been in it before. Many times.

The sound of movement had her tensing again, but it was followed by a slamming door and silence, so she forced herself to relax. She was alone.

Which meant it was time to put her newly earned skills to good use. One great thing about hanging out with Tom and Jimmy was that they taught her all sorts of stuff. Like how they got by for so long without adults in their life. Or how to pick locks with basically anything. She and Angie had practiced with Tom one boring afternoon and she'd been surprisingly good at it.

Jessie reached into her hair and pulled out a bobby pin and then another. Of course no one had bothered to take them out of her hair because they didn't suspect she'd have any use for them. How wrong they were.

Heard beating wildly, she listened for any foreign sounds as she forced the two pins into the lock and twisted. She didn't get it done on the first try, but she moved them around until they got stuck in the mechanism properly and she could turn it and unlock the door. She paused for another few seconds, waiting. When no sound came from the room beyond the door, she dared to push it open.

She hadn't been wrong. She was in her house, more specifically in her father's office. The room was empty. Across from the closet door was her father's desk. It was filled with scattered papers and one of the drawers was open. Between the white sheets, she spied something dark.

Her eyes widened and her pulse quickened again. His father had left his cellphone on his desk.

She hurried across the room and grabbed it. As soon as her fingers wrapped around it, she could hear the sound of footsteps.

Shit, she'd left the closet door open. She reached over and pushed it closed with her foot then dropped to the floor and scurried behind the desk, curling up under the open drawer.

The door to the room opened and someone hurried inside.

"See, still quiet?" a man's voice said. It was slightly familiar so it was maybe one of the guys who'd taken her.

"I swear, these rich people are so paranoid," another man said, his tone filled with disgust.

Jessie focused on the phone in her hand and punched in Kyle's number. She'd always liked how easy to remember it was and the fact that she actually had a friend, so she'd memorized it the day after they met. As if some part of her knew it could be useful in an emergency. Then, she shared her location with him.

"Do you think they have a safe?" one of the men asked.

"We don't have time to look for one right now."

The door opened again and Jessie almost dropped the phone.

"Is everything alright?" It was her father this time.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

As slowly as possible, she slid the phone over her head and back on the table, under some papers. She'd closed the messaging app and she hoped her father wouldn't access it any time soon.

"Yeah, she's still out," the other man said.

"Well, good." Her father's heavy footsteps came towards the desk. "If she wakes up, you know what to do."

"How scared do you want her?"

"Scared enough to fix her relationship and get back to touring. She's costing us a lot of money with her teenage antics."

Those damn assholes. It was all about the money. Unfortunately, she was one second from getting caught anyway, so she couldn't curse or throw something.

Her father stopped on the other side of the desk, probably looking for his phone. He began shuffling the papers and most likely grabbed it before heading back for the door.

"You two can wait outside," he said coldly.

"Yeah, yeah," the men mumbled, but when the door closed behind them, it was obvious that the room was now empty.

Jessie still waited for another few minutes just to make sure they wouldn't barge in and start looking for a safe. Not that they'd find anything valuable in it since her family was broke, bur she really didn't want the drama.

After it seemed safe, she made to stand. Her head hit something hard and she sucked air through her teeth. She'd completely forgotten about the open drawer above her.

Praying that the sound hadn't been loud enough to draw attention, she pushed the drawer closed. It hit against the higher drawer and wouldn't close.

"What the hell?" she whispered, pushing it again. It still would close.

She frowned and glanced inside it. She'd lifted and dislodged a fake bottom when she'd hit her head against it, and now the raised slab of wood was in the way. But what was her father hiding in a secret drawer?

A stack of tied in papers caught her eyes and she picked them up. The writing on them made no sense. She blinked, but the text didn't change. Adoption papers. In her name. What the hell? She was adopted?

That made no sense. If her parents wanted her badly enough to adopt her, they would've never treated her like the worst thing that had ever happened to them, arranged for her kidnapping to intimidate her. She'd always assumed she'd been the result of a drunken night of unprotected sex between two people who didn't want children, but were too catholic to get an abortion.

And if she was adopted, who were her real parents? She searched through the adoption papers and finally found her birth certificate. Jessica Simone Stefani. Parents: Simon Bernard Stefani and Rachel Grace Stefani.

Jessie's pulse thundered in her ears as she read the names over and over. She knew those names, of course she did. But she'd always thought they were her beloved aunt and uncle, the people who had raised her when she was very young as her parents built their fortune.

A whimper escaped her lips. She'd been only four when they'd died, and yet, she could still remember the moments spent with them, the love they showered her with. Of course they did if they were her real parents. But then... They'd died in a car crash and that time was so blurry she could hardly remember anything. Just the pain and crying herself to sleep every night. Her mother telling her to get over it because it wasn't like she'd lost her parents. They'd pretended they were her real parents and adopted her right after. Why?

As much as it hurt, as much as she hated thinking about those days, she had to know. Because somewhere in the back of her mind, a theory was forming, one that had every chance to be true. So, swallowing back tears, she continued searching through the papers. There it was, her parents' will.

As she'd expected, they'd left everything to her, their only daughter. And by adopting her, her real aunt and uncle made sure they got their hands on the money until she was of age. And by the looks of it, it was a lot of money. And houses. And her father's IT startup that was now the main source of the family's income and which her uncle was handling poorly.

Fire built inside Jessie, the smoke choking her, the flames making it unbearable to be herself anymore, to live this lie. Her entire life had been nothing but a rouse for some greedy relatives to steal her parents' money. First the lies and now the touring and forced marriage. What were they even trying to achieve by marrying her off to Kyle? Get her out of the house and away from the will so that they'd keep her money forever?

Something else from the will caught her eye. Most of the profit from the company was to go in a trust fund in her name. So she still had money, even if her supposed parents didn't. They obviously wanted her trust fund and probably had a plan to get it, but she couldn't dwell on that now.

She needed to get out of there and teach them a lesson for stealing her life and then trying to screw her over. But for that, she needed to get out of there and wait for backup.

Putting the relevant papers aside, she then focused on placing the faux drawer bottom back in and leave it in the same position she'd found it. Her fake father didn't have any reason to look for these papers and notice they were missing, at least not until she was long gone.

Once she was sure everything looked exactly as she'd found it, she returned to the closet in search for a bag she could put the documents in. Fortunately, she actually found a backpack filled with old gym equipment, so she emptied it, put the papers in and strapped it on her back.

Then, mindful to keep quiet, she snuck out the window and climbed down the lattice like she had a million times before. She fortunately knew a safe place across the street in an abandoned garage and she'd wait for her friends there. There was no doubt in her mind that they would come.

And until then, she'd throughly read the papers, try to come to terms with them, and come up with half a plan on how to get back what was rightfully hers. In the most painful and humiliating way possible for her fake parents.

One thing she was certain of, though.

She was glad those monsters weren't her parents.

🌗🌗🌗

Well, someone is very resourceful. And she found out some big dramatic secrets. Now, it is time for sweet revenge.

Stay tuned as all this gets solved in the next chapters and the story comes to a conclusion!