My Family Chose The Fake Heiress Then Begged For Me Back Chapter 08
The sentencing came down: multiple counts, to be served consecutively. Mia was sentenced to over a decade in federal prison, with no possibility of parole for the first eight years.
I was in the guest room eating pizza. Two large pies. Already through the first and halfway into the second.
My phone wouldn’t stop buzzing.
AldrichScandal trended on X for three straight days.
Someone cut the charity gala footage into a TikTok compilation—twelve million views.
CNN picked up the local affiliate’s deep dive. A Reddit thread hit the front page and stayed there.
Someone dug up the gala photos and put them side by side: Mom clutching Mia, stroking her hair with anguished tenderness—next to my face, blood running from my eyebrow, standing alone.
The caption: “Birth mother slaps her own daughter. Then hugs the con artist and cries.”
The comments were knives.
“This kind of mother is worse than no mother at all.”
“Her kid gets trafficked for eighteen years, and Mom’s favorite is the girl who stole everything. Who’s really the villain here?”
“Were those eighteen years away from this family a curse—or a blessing?”
Aldrich Corp’s market cap shed nearly thirty percent in three days. Partners called. Banks called. The board called. Every conversation had the same script.
“Mr. Aldrich, we need to reassess the terms of our partnership.”
Translation: we’re out.
Dad stopped counting how many calls he’d taken. At some point he threw his phone onto the table.
Mom sat on the living room sofa. The TV was on. The anchor said the word Aldrich and Mom grabbed the remote.
Turned it off.
Turned it back on.
Turned it off.
She spent forty minutes in the bathroom. When she came out, her eyes were so swollen she could barely open them.
She went upstairs.
Stood in front of the guest room.
Knocked three times.
I opened the door. There was still a smudge of pizza sauce at the corner of my mouth.
Mom saw me and started crying again.
“Nora, please. Forgive us.”
“This family will always have a place for you.”
I looked at her.
Didn’t nod. Didn’t say “okay.”
I turned around, walked back into the room, and picked up a sheet of paper from the desk.
“I have three conditions.”
Mom blinked.
“First. The Aldrich family contributes dedicated funding, in my name, to a national missing-children foundation. Independently operated by a third party. No Aldrich branding. No credit enhancement for the family.”
Mom opened her mouth.
“Second. The Aldrich family pays me financial compensation. I spent eighteen years out there. Eighteen years of housing, food, education, and medical care that I never received. That bill gets calculated to standard and settled in full.”
Mom’s tears stopped.
“Third.”
My voice was even.
“I go back to Nora Weiss. And the Aldrich family does not mention my name—or my connection to this family—in any public statement, any corporate filing, any press release, ever. You don’t get to use my story to rehab your image.”
Mom stepped back. Like she’d been pushed.
“Nora…”
“When you brought me here, nobody asked if I wanted to come.”
“When you hit me, nobody asked if it hurt.”
“Now you want forgiveness, and nobody’s asked if the wounds have healed.”
“You think one ‘sorry’ wipes the slate clean? Since when is it that cheap?”
Mom cried so hard she couldn’t speak.
—
That night, Dad came.
He sat in the only chair in the guest room and read the paper.
“The third condition… can we discuss it?”
I shook my head.
His shoulders dropped an inch.
He took a pen from his pocket.
Three conditions. Signed them one by one.
When the pen stopped after the last line, his hand stayed on the paper.
He didn’t look up.
“Nora.”
“Yeah.”
“The word ‘Dad’… would you still be willing to use it? Someday?”
I looked at him.
For a long time.
“Noted.”
Same as before.
No “okay.”
No “no.”