Reclaimed for the Eighth Time and Ready to Quit

1 By the time the eighth billionaire couple showed up on my doorstep claiming I was their long-lost biological daughter, my nervous system was officially fried. My sanity was running on the thinnest vapor of reserve fuel. At the lavish welcome-home gala thrown in the ballroom of their Greenwich estate, the girl they’d raised in my place—Sienna—cornered me near the indoor pool and publicly accused me of hurling her vintage Cartier diamond bracelet into the deep end. My supposed biological parents, Charles and Evelyn Mercer, turned to me with that tight, wounded disappointment radiating from their tailored clothes. "Jasmine," Charles began, his voice heavy with patriarchial grievance, "tell us the truth." Standing on that polished Italian marble, looking at their expectant, suspicious eyes, an overwhelming wave of sheer exhaustion crushed me. I didn't want to explain myself. I didn't want to play the game. I just wanted to be done. Completely, undeniably done. So, without a single word of defense, I pivoted on my designer heels and plunged straight into the heated pool, sinking like a brick to the mosaic floor. Pandemonium broke out. Screams tore through the ballroom. Floundering hands dragged me to the surface, coughing water onto the deck while Charles and Evelyn hovered above me, their faces drained of color. Sienna stood nearby, weeping into her lace handkerchief with theatrical fragility. My biological older brother, Graham Mercer, pushed his way through the soaking crowd, his expression dark with fury. "You listen to me, Jasmine," he snarled, leaning over me with raw disgust. "Pull another attention-seeking stunt like this, and you can pack your bags and get the hell out of this family." I wiped the chlorinated water from my eyes, looked past him at the long private driveway winding toward the estate gates, and got straight to my feet. "Copy that, Graham. I'll go throw myself into the Merritt Parkway traffic right now." Before he could process my words, I broke into a dead sprint toward the exit. Graham went pale. He chased me down the driveway, tackling me just as I reached the asphalt, dragging me backward while his chest heaved in panicked disbelief. He stared down at me as if I were some alien creature that defied all logic. Later that same night, after the guests had been ushered away and the mansion fell into a suffocating quiet, Sienna orchestrated the next act. She stood on the edge of the third-floor terrace, clutching the stone balustrade, weeping into the night air. "I shouldn't have stolen Jasmine's life," she sobbed, checking over her shoulder to make sure the family was watching. "I should just jump! I'll give everything back to her!" She teetered there, perfectly balanced, waiting for Graham and our parents to tackle her with reassuring affection. I walked out onto the stone patio, watching her perform. The hesitation in her stance was agonizing to watch. "You're dragging this out," I muttered, stepping forward and shoving her out of the way. "Move. Let a professional handle it." Before anyone could register what was happening, I vaulted cleanly over the balustrade. The terrace erupted in terrified shrieks, the wind whipped violently past my ears, and then everything went blissfully black. The low hum of hospital monitors pulled me back from the void. A familiar, high-pitched whimpering drifted into my ears: "I didn't say anything to her, Graham, I swear. She just shoved past me and jumped. I don't know what's wrong with her..." "Stop crying, Sienna. I’ve got you." Graham's voice was low, defensive, and fiercely protective. "Mom, Dad, can't you see this is all an act? Jasmine calculated the whole thing just to make Sienna look like a monster! If she actually wanted to end her life, why did she jump toward the lower terrace awning? She knew the canvas canopy would break her fall! It’s all malice!" Through half-open eyelids, I saw Graham gauging my parents’ hesitant expressions. Then his eyes flicked toward the hospital bed and met mine. A cruel spark ignited in his gaze. Without warning, he stepped forward, gripped my hospital gown, and yanked me violently off the mattress. He dragged me across the private suite, shoving my chest against the wide window ledge. "Look, Mom! Look, Dad!" Graham shouted, pressing me against the cold glass. "We're on the thirtieth floor of Manhattan Presbyterian! Nothing underneath. No awnings, no bushes, just concrete. If she's really so eager to die, why isn't she jumping now? She’s a phony! A manipulative, toxic fraud!" My head was pounding. Every muscle in my battered frame throbbed with a dull, bruising ache, and a wave of pure disappointment washed over me. Dammit. I survived again. Then I looked down through the glass. The yellow cabs on the street below looked like tiny insects crawling along asphalt cracks. Thirtieth floor. Pure, unobstructed vertical drop. A genuine smile spread across my face. While Graham was still ranting to our parents, my arms were already wrapping around the window latch. The modern safety lock yielded under my desperate, frantic wrenching, and before Graham could finish his sentence, my torso was already halfway out the frame, leaning into the intoxicating pull of gravity. Silence swallowed the room for half a second. Then the room erupted into sheer, unadulterated chaos. Screams. Frantic footsteps. Graham’s voice cracked into a pitch I hadn't heard before. I kicked, writhed, and clawed at the sill, trying with every ounce of strength to launch myself into the open air. Four pairs of hands grabbed my waist, my legs, the fabric of my gown, grunting and weeping as they dragged my squirming body backward into the room, finally pinning me onto the bed like a feral animal. Graham stood panting, his hair wild, his mouth opening to speak—until a sharp crack echoed through the room. Charles slammed the window shut, locked it with trembling fingers, and wheeled around, pointing a finger at his son. "Shut your mouth!" Charles roared, his chest heaving, his face gray. "Shut up right now! Have you ever seen someone try to 'fake' attention like that? Jasmine is your blood sister! Look at what you've driven her to!" Evelyn was shaking, tears running down her cheeks. She moved slowly toward my bedside, reaching out a trembling hand. "Jasmine... sweetheart..." Before her fingers could touch me, Sienna collapsed onto a visitor’s chair, clutching her chest, weeping hysterically. "It’s all my fault," Sienna gasped, fighting for breath. "Jasmine hates me this much because I'm here. I should just pack my bags and go into foster care or an apartment. I'll leave..." My parents' hands froze instantly. The compassion vanished, replaced by panic. "Sienna, stop talking like that!" Evelyn rushed to her side, wrapping her in a tight embrace. "You are our daughter. You will always be a Mercer. No one is replacing you, ever!" Graham planted himself firmly in front of Sienna like a human shield, his eyes blazing. "I only have one sister, and her name is Sienna Mercer. If anyone leaves this family, it won't be you!" If this had been the first time I heard those words, my heart might have cracked in two. Unfortunately, this was my eighth time. I had heard this exact melodrama, beat for beat, script for script, across seven different wealthy families. I knew the dialogue by heart. The only emotion left in me was a profound, suffocating nausea. A visceral wave of sickness hit me. Looking at their frantic, performative faces, memory fragments began floating up from the dark corners of my mind. Years ago, I had been the ultimate stray. Amnesiac, broke, shivering on a frozen bench in upstate New York, starving to death. When an automated mechanical voice—a System—spoke inside my skull, announcing that I was the chosen protagonist of a "True Heiress Redemption" narrative and that completing the mission would earn me a massive financial payout, I signed the cosmic contract just to buy a warm meal. Except the System’s navigation parameters had been completely corrupted. Instead of guiding me to my actual family, it steered me through seven consecutive cycles of agonizing rich-girl torture porn. In every single household, I was the biological daughter returned from the gutter, framed by a delicate foster sister, despised by a protective older brother, and discarded by emotionally bankrupt parents. By the end of the seventh family, I had earned a severe case of emotional PTSD. The System declared my trauma an "occupational hazard" and granted me a hundred-million-dollar early retirement settlement. I was literally standing at the threshold of cashing out when the Mercer family tracked me down. “Host, are you entirely sure you want to abandon this final mission?” the System’s voice chimed inside my head right at that moment. “I swear on my primary core code, this time the target coordinates are accurate. The Mercers are your genuine flesh and blood... But if you insist on terminating the contract, the protocol hasn't changed. You simply have to die within this narrative realm to trigger the final severance payout.” I was currently haggling with the System in my thoughts when Graham’s sharp bark yanked me back to reality. "Jasmine! Look at what you’ve done!" I looked up. His eyes were dark with accusing thunder. 2 Graham stood over me, his voice tight with manufactured outrage. "Because of your little stunt on the terrace, Sienna’s chronic cardiovascular weakness flared up. The specialists downstairs are saying her autoimmune markers are crashing. She needs an immediate, emergency plasma and whole-blood exchange." I blinked at him. "If it's an illness, buy her medicine. If it's terminal, buy her a plot. What does that have to do with me?" I tilted my head, studying him with blank curiosity. "Though, if she genuinely doesn't know how to die, I'd be happy to give her private lessons." The room was temporarily clear of our parents; they had stepped out to talk to the chief of medicine. Hearing my response, Graham lost whatever civilized veneer he had left. His palm cracked across my cheek. The sting burned, snapping my head to the side. "You did this to her!" Graham hissed through clenched teeth. "Your sick theatrics triggered her relapse! You owe her this transfusion, Jasmine. You don't get a say in the matter!" In the corner of the room, Sienna leaned against the doorframe, tears spilling down her pale cheeks like perfectly timed rain. "Forget it, Graham... Jasmine despises me so much. She’ll never agree to donate her blood for me. Just let me fade away. I deserve it." Her tears worked like an accelerant on Graham's temper. He lunged forward, grabbing the collar of my hospital gown and dragging me upward until my toes barely grazed the floor. "Jasmine Mercer, if you ever want a place under our roof, you will sign that donor consent form right now, or so help me God—" The room spun in dizzying circles. My throat constricted, and a violent cough rattled my ribs before he shoved me roughly back onto the mattress. "Don't make me bring the Mercer legal team up here," Graham warned, smoothing his cuffs. "Be smart for once in your life. Take the pen, read the consent form, and—" Before he could finish the sentence, I scrambled up, snatched the clipboard off the bedside tray, and scrawled my signature across the authorization line in two seconds flat. I tossed the pen at his chest. I didn't even look up. "Hook me up. Drain it." Graham froze, entirely derailed. "What?" "I said, hook the tubes up to my veins and pump it into Sienna," I said, voice flat as a dial tone. "In fact, tell the phlebotomist to just keep the pump running until the bag is completely full of everything I've got. I'm trying to check out of this dimension anyway." Sienna looked at Graham, her eyes wide with calculated alarm, letting out a soft, trembling gasp. Graham’s face twisted into an ugly, mottled red. "Jasmine, are you seriously doing this right now? It's a standard plasma transfusion! Do you have to twist everything into this grotesque, passive-aggressive spectacle just to make us look like monsters?" He paced the edge of the bed, rubbing his temples. "Name your terms. What do you want? What will it take for you to just donate the blood like a normal human being without this revolting martyrdom—" The relentless, circular absurdity of his logic hit my skull like a sledgehammer. My temple throbbed with a blinding migraine. Donate? Don't donate? Sign? Don't sign? Nothing satisfied them. The performance never ended. The last microscopic shred of my patience snapped clean in half. I sprang to my feet on top of the hospital bed, towering over him, and screamed straight into his face: "I signed it! Take it! Take all of it!" My voice tore through the quiet ward. "I'll give her the blood! I'll give her my marrow! I'll give her my damn lungs if she wants them! Can you shut your miserable mouth for five seconds?!" Before Graham could blink, my hand darted to the fruit basket on the rolling table. I snatched the small paring knife, flipped the blade backward, and dragged the edge fiercely across my left wrist. Except the expected spray of warm arterial blood never arrived. Graham’s reflexes, honed by years of college lacrosse, kicked in on pure instinct. His bare hand clamped down hard over the steel blade, arresting the slice just millimeters from my radial artery. Crimson welled between his knuckles, dripping onto the pristine white sheets. Sienna shrieked in horror, stumbling backward out into the corridor to scream for the trauma team. Graham slammed me flat against the mattress with his uninjured forearm, pinning my shoulders down. His face was ghostly pale, his voice trembling with an unhinged vibration: "Are you insane?! Jasmine, have you completely lost your mind?! Is this the only card you know how to play to get attention?" His chest heaved against mine. "Before you disappeared and lost your memory, you spent every waking moment pulling these suicidal dramatics! It’s been seven years! Seven years out in the world, and you haven't grown up a single inch!" I went rigid under his weight. Then the rage surged back, and I began thrashing like an alligator. "Let go of me! Whether I've grown up has nothing to do with you! Get off me!" "I am your brother!" The veins in his neck stood out like thick cords. I kicked, clawed, and twisted. When my limbs couldn't gain leverage, I snapped my teeth forward, sinking them deep into the fleshy meat of his thumb. The coppery tang of his blood flooded my mouth. I bit down with everything I had, tasting his skin, grinding my teeth toward the bone. He grunted in agony, but he didn't let go. His grip remained an iron vise. Exhaustion finally washed over me. I loosened my jaw, letting his blood smear across my lips, and slumped back against the pillows. I forced a soft, radiant, angelic smile onto my bruised face. "Okay, Graham," I whispered, keeping my tone breathy and sweet. "You caught me. You're just too smart for me. I confess. I did it all for attention. I just wanted Mom and Dad to look at me instead of Sienna. I wanted your love." I blinked up at him, wide-eyed and innocent. "You saw right through my pathetic little act. The show's over now. I don't want to die anymore. Can you please let go of my hands?" Graham stared deep into my eyes, searching for the crack in the facade. My expression was an unblemished sheet of absolute sincerity. Slowly, heavily, he released his grip and took a ragged breath. "Jasmine," he said, wrapping a stray towel around his bleeding hand, trying to reclaim his authoritative composure. "I don't like forcing you. But Sienna is family, and helping her is the decent thing to do. You crossed a line today. But I promise you, if you cooperate with the medical staff and help Sienna recover, this family will welcome you back. We can start over—" Before the word over left his lips, my right hand darted forward, snatched the knife from the bedspread, and drove the point straight into the side of my neck. The universe seemed to pause. The heavy mahogany door swung open. Charles and Evelyn walked in holding brown paper bags from the upscale deli down the block. A jet of hot arterial blood sprayed in a wide arc across the room, spattering across the front of their cashmere coats and into Evelyn’s face. The brown bags hit the linoleum with a wet thud. A high, inhuman wail shattered the room: "DOCTOR! GOD ALMIGHTY, SOMEBODY GET A DOCTOR!"