Betrayed After Getting Rich Overnight Chapter 01

Betrayed After Getting Rich Overnight Chapter 01

Chapter 1 Go Home

Good news. I got laid off today, and they were giving me a 1.2 million severance package.

Even better news. I bought a lottery ticket on a whim and won ten million dollars.

I posted in our family group chat to let everyone know I’d been let go and that I’d be home tonight. Then I headed straight to the mall, giddy with excitement, and loaded up on gifts for everyone. A whole suitcase full.

I was sitting on the train heading back to my hometown when I started scrolling through my phone and stumbled across a Twitter post. Someone had asked, “What do you do when some random distant relative gets laid off and expects to crash at your place rent-free?”

The top comment had hundreds of upvotes. “One, make them hand over their severance pay. Two, change the locks before they arrive to establish dominance. Three, get the rest of the family to mock them until they leave on their own.”

I felt a wave of relief wash over me. My parents, Michael and Felicia Lewis, would never treat me like that. Plus, I’d bought the house they lived in with my own money, so nobody could kick me out even if they wanted to.

But then my phone buzzed. A message from Felicia popped up on my screen, telling me to transfer my severance payment to her.

I stared at the message, stunned. Before I could think it through, my fingers moved on their own, and I typed back, “There is no severance.”

The chat went silent for what felt like forever. Panic started creeping in, and I frantically sent another message. “But I won the lottery.”

But she blocked me.

My mind completely blanked out for a second. Maybe Felicia had clicked something by accident.

Then another message popped up in the family group chat. “You have been removed from this conversation.”

I stared at the message on my screen, and dread started creeping up my spine.

By the time I made it to the front door, the sky had gone dark. My hand was frozen stiff from dragging my suitcase behind me, and I couldn’t get the damn door open. I tried the fingerprint scanner ten times, then typed in the passcode five more times, but it kept flashing error messages.

I knocked over and over, but nobody came to the door. The TV had been playing inside, but the volume dropped the instant I started knocking.

I pulled out my phone and called Felicia. She hung up on me. I tried Michael next. He did the same thing.

I pressed my ear flat against the door and heard quiet laughter drifting from inside, along with the sound of my nephew Timothy bouncing about inside.

I banged on the door harder and yelled, “Mom! Open up, it’s freezing out here!”

I heard someone shushing Timothy, and then his voice got muffled like someone had clamped a hand over his mouth.

After that, the house went completely silent.

I stood outside their door for a solid ten minutes before Felicia finally called me back.

She said, “We’re on vacation. Nobody’s home. Just head back, okay?”

“But I can hear people inside,” I said.

She went quiet for a second.

“You’re hearing things.”

My heart dropped straight into my stomach.

I dragged my suitcase down the stairs and heard the door crack open behind me. When I turned around, it had clicked shut again.

I checked into the cheapest motel I could find nearby and pulled up that forum post again.

The poster had just updated it.

“Y’all, how does someone have literally zero boundaries? We changed the locks and she still had the nerve to call asking us to let her in! Does she seriously not get that she’s not welcome here?”

I looked down at the gifts I’d packed for them. A diamond bracelet for Felicia, a designer leather belt for Michael, a luxury handbag for Autumn, and a tablet for Timothy. It was almost eight grand worth of stuff.

I felt this sudden urge to laugh. But as soon as I started, tears came streaming down my face anyway.

So I was the “laid-off distant relative” that post was ripping apart.

And the person posting it was Autumn Lewis, my foster sister who’d lived rent-free in my house for five years after her divorce, her and her son both.

When Felicia couldn’t squeeze compensation money out of me, they changed the locks to send me a message. They wanted to intimidate me into paying up to get some peace and quiet.

But I’m their biological daughter. The moment I told them I got laid off and needed to come home, they acted like I was some freeloader they had to get rid of. Like I was just dead weight.

My phone rang. It was Felicia calling.

“Summer, where are you right now?”

Her tone was perfectly casual, like she wasn’t the one who’d blocked my number and locked me out of the house.

My voice came out bitter. “At a motel.”

She actually had the nerve to flip it on me. “A motel? Why aren’t you staying at home? That’s such a waste of money! You just got laid off and you still don’t know how to save a damn dollar. How did I end up with such an irresponsible kid?”

I let out a bitter laugh but didn’t bother calling her out on her bullshit. “I can’t open the door.”

“Oh, that. We changed the passcode a few days ago.” She paused for a second. “Just give it a few days, okay?”

Then she hung up.

She didn’t explain why she’d changed the passcode or why my fingerprint was deleted. She didn’t tell me what the new code was either.

I stared at my phone, looking at the messages from right after I’d won the lottery, the ones where I’d immediately contacted a realtor to buy Michael and Felicia a villa for their retirement.

My eyes burned from staring at the screen.

This power play lasted three days before I finally got word that I could go home.

I knocked on the door for five minutes straight before Felicia grudgingly opened it.