In Their Shadow: The Daughter They Forgot Chapter 07

In Their Shadow: The Daughter They Forgot Chapter 07

It started when someone posted photos of us side by side on Reddit.

[Wait, doesn’t this Tamsin look a lot like Mirelle Dacre?]

The comment section erupted.

Internet sleuths followed the trail and dug up an old story.”

It included a clip from one of Mirelle’s interviews.

Someone had asked whether she had an older sister. She’d replied lightly, “Oh, she doesn’t count as family.”

At the time, one statement had buried the controversy: [Statement on Mirelle Dacre’s livestream: Her comment was part of the show. Please don’t read too much into it.]

Now the statement resurfaced, and the replies went wild.

[Wait. So Tamsin really is her biological sister?]

[If all those posts Tamsin wrote were about the Dacres… that family sounds suffocating.]

[Isn’t Mirelle’s whole brand about how sweet and kind she is?]

***

The entire internet waited for an answer.

The moment I picked up, Mirelle’s voice slammed into me.

“Was this you? Everyone’s talking about us now. Are you happy?”

“I never mentioned you on the show,” I said calmly. “Maybe you should’ve thought about this before saying what you did.”

“You…”

I hung up.

The next day, the uninvited visitors came anyway.

Briony was teaching, and I was home working on an essay.

I caught their familiar scents from a distance.

A black Range Rover had parked in the visitor parking outside Cascadia’s faculty cottages.

Dad, Mom, Leander, Corwin, and Mirelle walked toward me together.

They clearly hadn’t expected me to live here.

It was a small wooden cottage.

A few potted plants, a little vegetable garden, and two shirts swaying on the clothesline.

Leander frowned first, as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. “You live in a place like this?”

“What’s wrong with it?” I asked.

Their expressions stiffened.

Mom quickly looked away.

She obviously hadn’t come to see how I was doing.

“Tamsin, Mirelle has been crying all day because of you.

“Are you done with this tantrum? Then post something and clear it up.”

I looked straight into her eyes.

“What exactly should I say?

“That I’m not her biological sister?

“Or that she always treated me well?”

No one answered.

Dad spoke impatiently.

“Exactly how has the Dacre family ever mistreated you?”

His Alpha voice still held its familiar weight.

“You grew up in the Pack House. You had a roof over your head, food on the table, and clothes on

your back.

“Now you’re trashing your family online. What more do you want?”

I laughed.

“You mean that house? It was yours, not mine. My room was a storage closet on the north side. No private bathroom. Not even a window. Oh, right.”

I turned to Corwin.

“It’s a cat room now.”

His face tightened.

“You never said I couldn’t.”

“Because I’d already left,” I said, looking away. “It took you forty-five days to notice I was gone.”

I didn’t look at him again. I faced Dad.

“And as for never going hungry, I could never reach the food.

“I sat in the far corner. Every dish was beyond my reach, and no one cared. Even the dog ate better

than I did.”

“Then why didn’t you move?” Dad frowned as if I were the unreasonable one.

“I did,” I said calmly. “You stopped me because Pippin was used to that spot.”

The room went still.

No one could answer.

Then Leander frowned.

“So? You’re going to ruin Mirelle’s career over a few little things?”

I looked straight at him.

At the brother I’d gotten out of bed to cook for countless times.

“You’d wake me at three in the morning to make you food while you trained. Once, my hand appeared on your livestream. A fan asked who I was, and you called me the maid.”

Then I turned to Corwin.

“In elementary school, I walked to pick you up in the rain. You were embarrassed to be seen with me, so you took our only umbrella and told your friends I was the driver’s daughter.

walked home soaked and ran a fever for two days. Did you feel guilty even once?”

His mouth opened, but no words came.

I answered for him. “No. The one time you knocked on my door, it was to complain that I hadn’t scooped Nimbus’s litter.”

The yard went utterly still.

“Things like that happened every day in that house. You simply got used to me giving in.

“Now I’ve done nothing but refuse to play along, and suddenly I’m petty. That’s how your logic

works.”

One by one, their faces went pale.

Finally, I looked at Mom.