The truth was, I'd uncovered everything within my first year back in the country.
The one who drugged my food was my biological mother.
The one who contacted the human traffickers and used forged documents to sell me onto a labor ship was my biological father.
And Barret, the parasite who'd hidden behind them the whole time, reaping every benefit while they did the dirty work, was the mastermind behind all of it.
They used that two million three hundred thousand dollars to buy out my entire life. And they used it to pave a golden road for Barret Fox.
So after I clawed my way back from the sea, half-dead and barely breathing, I buried my identity. I survived on recycling scraps to pay for school.
I studied like a woman possessed. I passed the civil service exams. I climbed, rung by rung, all the way up.
Countless nights I lay awake, rehearsing this exact day in my mind.
What I wanted wasn't just an apology.
What I wanted was to destroy the lives they'd built on the ashes of mine.
"Sharon, it's too late for regret."
Barret walked toward me, his voice low.