Calliope sat quietly, her face unreadable, as Valerian spoke from the stage.


    He really was putting on a show, looking every bit the heartbroken brother who''d just been stabbed in the back.


    "We always believed Callie was our little sister," Valerian said, voice trembling. "We treated her like family. Sure, sometimes we acted a bit off, but maybe deep down, we sensed something wasn''t right, that she wasn''t really ours."


    “I mean,e on, doesn''t anyone else think it''s weird that Callie never looked anything like the rest of us? The three of us boys, we''re the spitting image of our parents. But Callie? Not even close."


    "She was raised by our granddad from the time she was a baby, so none of us ever questioned it. We just... trusted him."<fn52f1> Readplete version only at find?novel</fn52f1>


    "But now, after all these years, we just found out she''s not our real sister. Our real sister died a long time ago."


    "And Calliope knew. She knew the whole time and never told us! She used our love for our sister against us. She lied. She tricked us."


    "Now Grandpa''s gone. We don''t even know exactly how he died. But honestly? I can''t help but wonder if Calliope had a hand in it."


    "Everyone knows she''s a brilliant doctor. It wouldn''t have been hard for her to... well, make sure an old man slipped away quietly."


    "Our whole family regrets it now. We regret not being more attentive to my grandpa. We regret not questioning Calliope''s story from the start."


    "We''re not just here because of Grandpa''s will. We''re here because we loved him. We''re here because it hurts to think the granddaughter he cherished might''ve been the very reason he''s gone."


    Valerian''s voice wavered, his eyes glistening.


    "And what hurts even more is knowing our real sister is gone. All this time, we believed she was alive and well. But now we know, she''s been gone for years."


    "Calliope, why? Why did you do this to us? You lied to us. Did you kill our granddad? Did you have something to do with our real sister''s death?"


    "All these years you lived among us, pretending to be family, fooling the entire Jewell n. What was it all for?"


    "You say we never treated you right, that we favored Lisette... but did you ever think about the fact that you were the one lying to all of us?"


    "Listen, Calliope, if youe clean now, if you give back what''s rightfully ours, maybe, just maybe, we can move past this. But if you keep hiding we won''t hesitate to take you to court and fight for what''s ours."


    He paused, his shoulders shaking.


    Lisette dabbed at her eyes with a tissue and spoke up, her voice soft and broken.


    "My heart aches for the real Callie," she whispered. "She never got the love she deserved from this family. And now she''s gone.


    you have


    Something to do with calliope?


    How can you live with yourself?"


    "Maybe you all didn''t realize, but I always suspected she wasn''t really a Jewell. That''s why I kept testing her pushing her. You all thought I was being cruel but I wasn I wasn''tor was just trying to figure out the truth."


    "I couldn''t be sure, so I had to keep quiet and bear the me."


    "But now, the truth is finally out, and I know I did the right thing."


    Lisette looked up, tears streaking her cheeks. "Calliope, how could you deceive parents who lost their daughter? How could you use their grief, just for money? How could you be so heartless?"