Keep Your Love Give Me Millions

Having clawed my way out of the Rust Belt on a diet of cheap instant ramen and seventy-hour workweeks, the only demographic I genuinely envied was the idle rich. When the billionaire Barrett family finally tracked me down, declaring I was their long-lost biological daughter, I genuinely believed my days on the corporate treadmill were over. Joke’s on me. They had zero intention of parting with trust funds or company equity. What they wanted to offer me, in endless, suffocating abundance, was their "love". Unfortunately, love doesn’t pay off student loans or satisfy a ruthless landlord. Left with no other choice, I went right back to my brutal marketing grind. Tonight, after dragging myself home past midnight following another soul-crushing round of revisions, Alyssa—the girl they adopted to replace me—burst into theatrical tears the second I stepped through the door. "Why do you always come home so late?" she sobbed, delicate hands trembling against her cashmere sweater. "Do you despise me that much? Are you working yourself to the bone just to avoid sleeping under the same roof as me?" My parents stood behind her, their expressions curdled with disappointment. "Can’t you show a shred of grace toward Alyssa?" my father chided, his voice heavy with grievance. "She makes herself sick with worry waiting for you every single night. Because of your coldness, she lives in constant emotional turmoil." Damon, my prodigal older brother, lunged forward, grabbing my shoulder and physically trying to force my head down. "I knew the moment we brought you back that you’d shatter the peace in this house. You apologize to her right now, and you explain yourself." I stared at the four of them, feeling the crushing weight of their rehearsed, third-rate soap opera pressing against my temples. I was too exhausted to breathe, let alone play along. "How much longer are you four planning to keep this performance going?" I asked flatly. "Hurry it up. I have to be at work in six hours." … My words fell into the foyer like a bucket of ice water. The four of them froze. My phone buzzed against my palm. Looking down, I saw an email from our biggest corporate account containing the eighteenth round of revisions on a pitch deck. The screen blurred before my eyes. A wave of pure, toxic corporate despair washed over me; all I wanted in this godforsaken world was to crawl into my king-sized bed and disassociate until morning. I turned on my heel toward the stairs, but Damon caught my arm in a vice grip. "What is that attitude, Bridget?" he snapped, his face flushed with righteous indignation. "Is your pathetic little nine-to-five really more important than your sister’s feelings?" I rolled my eyes so hard it gave me a headache. "Obviously it is. If I don't work, where do I get money? You people certainly aren’t giving me any shares in the family business." The foyer went dead silent again. Their faces blanched. I had gone missing just before my third birthday, and by the time the Barretts’ private investigators finally unearthed me, I had already spent two grueling years climbing the corporate ladder. When the DNA test confirmed I was their flesh and blood, I thought I’d struck gold. I had read the society pages: on Alyssa’s eighteenth birthday, our parents had gifted her an eight-figure trust fund and a clean ten percent of Barrett Enterprises equity. If that was the baseline for the surrogate daughter, I figured the return of the prodigal biological heir would guarantee me financial freedom for life. So I played along. I legally took back the Barrett name, packed up my dingy studio apartment, moved into their sprawling suburban estate, and politely inquired about my share of the family empire. My parents looked at me as if I’d asked them to pawn their kidneys. "We haven't prepared anything like that for you, Bridget," my father said stiffly. "Why not?" I asked. He puffed out his chest, adopting the solemn air of a titan of industry. "Equity transfers are extraordinarily complex. There are corporate bylaws, regulatory filings, minority shareholder covenants... it isn't nearly as simple as you seem to think." Right. It wasn’t too complicated for Alyssa, but suddenly it was a bureaucratic quagmire when it came to me. Fine. Keep the equity for now. What about an allowance? A modest financial cushion? My mother stepped in, shaking her head with gentle, patronizing sorrow. "Bridget, darling, it’s not that we’re unwilling. It’s just that Alyssa hasn't asked us for a single dollar of allowance since she turned eighteen. If we give you a monthly stipend and leave her out, she’ll feel cast aside." I nearly laughed out loud. Alyssa had a nine-figure portfolio under her belt and pulled millions in annual dividends. If I had that kind of passive income, I wouldn’t be begging for grocery money either. Seeing them struck dumb by my bluntness, I assumed the evening's performance was finally adjourned. I turned toward the staircase once more, only for Damon’s venomous voice to slice through the hall. "Money, money, money. Is that the only thing rattling around in your skull, Bridget?" He looked down his nose at me. "Mom spends hours simmering bone broth from scratch for you—have you touched a single bowl? Alyssa sits in the dark waiting up for you every night—have you ever once said thank you? They’ve offered you nothing but unconditional love, and you walk around this house with a scowl, looking like the living dead, acting as though this entire family owes you a debt. You were the one who wandered away from the nanny at the park! Who are you trying to punish with this attitude?" He looked so smug, so thoroughly convinced of his moral superiority. When he finished, I didn't cry. I laughed. "Bone broth? Damon, in case nobody bothered to read my medical intake form, I have a severe poultry allergy. And as for Alyssa waiting up on the couch, did I ever submit a formal request for a welcoming committee? If you shove unwanted gestures down someone’s throat without ever asking what they actually need, that isn't love. That’s pure, self-indulgent performance art." The truth cut too close to the bone. Damon’s face turned an ugly, mottled crimson, and his hand flew up, reflexively aiming for my face. "You ungrateful little brat, I swear I’m going to—" Before the blow could land, Alyssa threw herself between us, grabbing his wrist. "Damon, don't! Please, don't hit her!" She turned to face me, tears spilling prettily down her flawless cheeks. "Bridget, please don't fight with our brother. It’s all my fault. I stole your place, I took your shares... If the equity is really what’s tearing you apart, I’ll transfer mine to you. All of it." Damon flared up instantly. "No! Alyssa, absolutely not! Those shares are your inheritance, your security in this family! If you give them to her—" "Deal," I cut in, flashing her a bright, merciless smile. "Since you're so desperate to make amends, draft the paperwork tomorrow morning. I’ll gladly take them off your hands." Alyssa froze. Damon’s jaw tightened. "Bridget, stop using your DNA to hold this family hostage! Those shares are hers by right!" He was practically foaming at the mouth, but my eyes remained glued to Alyssa. "Well, little sister? I'm waiting. You aren't backing out now, are you?" Alyssa’s porcelain skin drained of color for two whole seconds before she pulled her gentle, saintly mask back over her face. "Of course not, Bridget. I’d love nothing more than to give them to you. It’s just... you’ve never worked in corporate governance. You have no idea how grueling equity management can be. Holding significant shares carries immense legal exposure and personal liability. I’m not hesitating for my sake—I’m terrified the board members would eat you alive." Right on cue, my parents found their voices. My father cleared his throat and chimed in, explaining that Barrett Enterprises was in a delicate position with outside investors, that transfers required supermajority board approval, and that while I was indeed their biological daughter, I had spent the last two decades far removed from high finance. Without an Ivy League pedigree or executive training, the institutional investors would never permit it. Excuses, layered upon excuses. Barrett Enterprises was a tightly held family venture; eighty percent of the voting stock belonged to aunts and uncles who signed whatever my father put in front of them. What liability? What catastrophic risk? Listening to the four of them talk over one another—trying to convince me that denying me my birthright was an act of profound, protective benevolence—made bile rise in the back of my throat. At that exact second, my phone vibrated again. A direct message from my creative director: "I know tomorrow is Saturday, but the client needs the deck finalized by noon. Don't go offline." My eyes burned with sudden, humiliating exhaustion. The sharp retort on the tip of my tongue dissolved into ash. Whatever. Let the whole world burn. Without another word, I brushed past them and walked upstairs. In my bedroom, I stripped off my corporate armor, took a scalding fifteen-minute shower, and collapsed onto the mattress. The crisp, clean sheets felt like a life raft. Just as I unlocked my phone to distract my fried brain with brain-dead scrolling, there was a tentative rap on the door. My mother’s voice filtered through the wood. "Bridget? Sweetheart, are you awake? I warmed up some milk for you. Drink it before you sleep." My immediate instinct was defensive. "No, thank you." A heavy silence lingered. Then, her muffled voice softened with quiet sorrow. "Bridget, I’m so sorry. I truly didn't know about your allergy. You loved chicken noodle soup when you were a baby... I didn't realize things had changed so much." She sounded genuinely wounded, smaller somehow. To be entirely honest, I hadn't returned to this family completely devoid of memory. The few fragments that survived my childhood were tactile and tender: the scent of lavender on her silk blouses, the steady rhythm of her hand patting my back, the faint melody of a lullaby humming against my cheek. I hadn't come back solely for the money; initially, I had wanted the mother I lost. It was only after realizing that every drop of maternal devotion meant for me had long since been poured into Alyssa that I hardened my heart. Still, my defenses cracked. I climbed out of bed, padded across the hardwood, and opened the door. I took the glass of warm milk from her hands and drained it in three steady gulps. "Thank you," I said, handing back the empty tumbler. Just as I was about to wish her a good night, she reached behind her back and produced a second, full glass of warm milk, pressing it into my hands. "I can't drink another one," I said, bewildered. "It’s not for you, darling," she said softly, her fingers closing gently over mine. "Take this down the hall to Alyssa, would you?" She didn't notice the way my spine snapped straight, or the cold dread freezing my chest. "You really hurt her feelings downstairs," she whispered, her eyes pleading. "She ran to her room in tears. Take this to her, offer an olive branch. You two are sisters, Bridget. You have to learn to bridge the gap." I stared at her, the warmth from the milk burning my palms while the rest of me went numb. Every vicious, jagged thought I possessed swirled through my head. In the end, bone-deep exhaustion won. "If I deliver this," I asked coldly, "will you leave me alone for the rest of the night?" Startled by the icy edge in my voice, my mother blinked, but she nodded. I walked down the dim corridor, stopped outside Alyssa’s door, and knocked twice. When she opened it, her eyes red-rimmed, I held out the tumbler. "From your mother," I said flatly. "She wants you to stop crying." I waited until I felt her fingers close securely around the glass before I began to pull my hands away. The next second, the glass slipped from her fingers, plunging straight down. A sharp shatter echoed through the hallway. Alyssa shrieked. A jagged shard of thick glass sliced clean into the pale arch of her bare foot. Her piercing scream summoned the household in seconds. Within moments, the hallway was a circus. Damon rushed past me to grab a trauma kit, my father barked orders into his cell phone for the private physician, and my mother fell to her knees beside Alyssa’s bleeding foot. Then, my mother looked up, her gaze snapping toward me like a whip. "Bridget! If you resented taking your sister a drink, you could have just said no! Why couldn't you hold the glass properly?" "I didn't drop it," I began, my voice steady despite the adrenaline spiking in my veins. "She let go on purpose—" Before I could finish, Damon shoved past me, his shoulder slamming violently into mine. "Mom, why are you even asking? She did it on purpose! She’s punishing Alyssa because she couldn't extort her shares downstairs!" My father’s brow furrowed, his mouth opening to deliver another lecture. Alyssa choked back a sob, clinging to Damon’s arm. "Damon, Mom, please don't yell at Bridget! It wasn't her fault... my hands were just shaky. I dropped it." The more magnanimous she played, the more their hearts bled for her. They swarmed her like worker bees tending a wounded queen, fussing over the scrape, drowning her in coos of sympathy. I stood there in the doorway, watching the tableau. Then I glanced down at my own ankle, where a flying shard of glass had drawn a neat, blooming line of crimson across my skin. I didn't say a word. I turned around, walked back into my room, and locked the door. Nothing in this world couldn't be endured after a solid night of sleep. Besides, tomorrow was Saturday. Even with the deck revision hanging over my head, I had nowhere to be until morning. I slept straight through until nine o'clock, drifting down the grand staircase in my oversized flannel pajamas. To my surprise, my parents—who normally finished breakfast by seven—were still sitting at the long mahogany dining table. Seeing me, my father gestured toward an empty chair. I braced myself for the inevitable post-mortem on last night's broken glass. But the moment my father opened his mouth, the words took the wind right out of me. "Bridget," he said, setting down his coffee cup, "your mother and I talked late into the night. We've decided to allocate a block of company equity to you." My eyes widened, though my defenses instantly raised a wall. "Are you serious? Or is this another loyalty test?" My mother shook her head gently. "We’re serious. We realized we were looking at this from our own perspective, not yours. You didn't grow up with us, so it’s natural you feel insecure about your standing in this family. Your father and I did some reading online last night. Modern professionals have a saying: "Love follows the investment." My father nodded in agreement. "We held back initially because we were concerned about dumping generational wealth onto someone your age all at once. Alyssa mentioned that young women from modest backgrounds often lose their footing when they come into sudden, life-altering windfalls." Of course. I knew it. Alyssa had been poisoning the well from the very beginning. Still, if they were finally ready to hand over the keys to the kingdom, I wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. "How much are we talking about?" My father held up two fingers. "Twenty percent. The exact same allocation Damon received." Holy shit. Twenty percent of Barrett Enterprises was enough to ensure that neither I nor my hypothetical grandchildren would ever need to look at an Excel spreadsheet again. Before I could even process the magnitude of the offer, the heavy clatter of a phone hitting the floor echoed from the entryway. We turned. Alyssa stood frozen by the archway, her face as pale as chalk, a flash of pure, venomous envy blazing behind her doe eyes before she quickly swallowed it down. My mother immediately fluttered out of her chair. "Alyssa, sweetheart! What are you doing out of bed? Dr. Wallace said you shouldn't put weight on that foot! If you needed anything, you should have called the housekeeper!" Alyssa leaned heavily against the wall, forcing a frail smile. "I’m fine, Mom. I just... I overheard Dad saying he’s transferring equity to Bridget. Is that true?" My mother nodded brightly. Alyssa’s smile looked like it had been carved onto her face with a scalpel. "That’s wonderful. I just worry the institutional directors might try to push her around." My mother waved a hand dismissively. "She’ll have to learn eventually. When your father and I step back, this firm belongs to Damon and Bridget anyway." Alyssa’s jaw clenched so hard I thought her veneers might crack. I floated upstairs on a cloud of quiet triumph. Even having to open my work laptop and redraw the entire brand deck felt bearable. For about thirty minutes, anyway. Then reality caught up with me. Corporate clients are universally sadistic. I spent the next two hours battling formatting errors, rewriting taglines, and tweaking hex codes until my wrists ached, finally receiving the ping I had been praying for: "Thanks, Bridget! Good work. Let's actually just stick with Version 1." I stared at the screen. "Unbelievable sociopaths." I typed back: "Understood! Happy to help." Parched from the marathon sprint, I headed downstairs to the kitchen to fetch a glass of ice water. When I climbed back up to my bedroom five minutes later, someone was already inside. Alyssa was standing right next to my desk, staring down at my open MacBook with an unmistakable, mocking sneer. "Oh no, Bridget," she purred, tilting her head. "I think I broke your little toy." My stomach dropped. I crossed the room in three strides and jabbed at the power button. Nothing. The screen remained dead black. That laptop had cost me three months of junior-designer wages after college. Every freelance portfolio, every creative concept, every piece of work I had slaved over for four years was housed on that drive. When multiple hard resets yielded nothing, panic gave way to blinding fury. "You poured water on it on purpose, didn't you?" Alyssa blinked innocently. "Bridget, how could you say that? It was an accident! I was just reaching for a pen and knocked my glass over. I had no idea your computer was so fragile. Don't be so dramatic—I’ll buy you a brand-new one, okay?" The saccharine patronization made my skin crawl. Refusing to give her the satisfaction of a screaming match, I slammed the lid shut, tucked the heavy machine under my arm, and marched toward the door. I had no time to waste; the agency creative director was expecting the final zip-archive in his inbox within the hour. I sped to a high-end data recovery shop in the city, praying it was just a dead logic board. But the moment the senior technician bridged the drive into his terminal, warning sirens practically blared. The system had been flooded with a recursive wipe-script. By the time the cleanup utility purged the virus, the internal solid-state drive had been zeroed out. Blank slate. Panic tightened around my throat like a garrote. "Can you recover the local partitions? Anything?" The tech scratched his beard and shook his head grimly. "Not a chance. This wasn't water damage, miss. The drive was manually wiped clean using a military-grade shredder program before the machine ever shorted out. Did someone have unattended physical access to your desk?" Alyssa’s smirking face flashed behind my eyes. Before I could even process the violation, my phone began vibrating furiously. It was my creative director. The second I hit accept, a wall of screaming hit my ear. He called me every name in the book, demanding to know if I had lost my mind, asking how I could possibly have sent that unhinged, career-ending screed to our primary client. My head spun. "What? I didn't send anything—" "Save the lies, Bridget! You just cost this firm a seven-figure annual retainer! You're fired. Pack up your digital assets and don't you ever put this agency on your resume." He slammed the phone down. Trembling, I opened my phone's synchronized cloud messaging app. The chat logs between my account and the corporate account executive were an apocalyptic nightmare—paragraphs of vile, unhinged profanity, mocking the client's family, calling their brand trash. That job was my lifeline. I had beaten out hundreds of applicants for that junior seat. I bitched about the hours, I hated the burnout, but it was "mine". It was the only proof I had that I could survive in this world without anyone’s charity. And now it was gone. I drove back to the estate in a state of absolute, hollow shock. My agency work-chat was blowing up; my desk-mate texted to warn me that the managing partner had forwarded my messages to the regional industry network. I had been effectively blacklisted from every major agency in the state. I walked into my bedroom, staring blankly at the wall, when the door swung open. Alyssa strolled in, eyes sparkling with petty malice. "Did they fix it, Bridget? If not, I have a friend in IT who could—" Before the sentence cleared her lips, I stepped forward and slapped her across the face. It was an impulsive, furious crack, but I pulled the punch at the last second; it was meant to sting, not draw blood. Yet Alyssa acted as if she’d been struck by a freight train. She let out a theatrical shriek and hurled herself backward, tumbling dramatically toward my antique vanity. Her hip slammed into the wood, dislodging a silver fruit-paring knife that sat on the edge. The blade slid off the polished surface and sliced a clean, shallow gash into her upper arm. As Alyssa screamed bloody murder, a roar echoed from the hallway. Damon burst through the doorway, taking in the blood and throwing himself across Alyssa like a human shield. "Bridget, have you completely lost your mind?! You tried to murder her?!" I stared at the two of them, the utter absurdity of it so profound that a cold, humorless chuckle slipped from my throat. Damon’s eyes practically bugged out. "You tried to butcher your sister and you're "laughing"?!" "Damon, please don't be mad at her," Alyssa wept, clutching her bloody arm. "It’s my fault... I ruined her laptop. She had every right to be upset..." "Over a fucking laptop?!" Damon shouted, glaring up at me as if I were a rabid animal. "You tried to slit her throat over a piece of plastic?! I always knew you were rotten, Bridget, but this is demonic. What did Alyssa ever do to you that makes you hate her this much?!" My parents came rushing in next, breathless and white-faced. They gasped at the sight of the blood on Alyssa’s sleeve. Alyssa repeated her sob story between trembling gasps—carefully framing herself as the clumsy martyr and painting me as a vicious, bloodthirsty lunatic. My father turned to me, his face carved from cold stone. "Is this true, Bridget? Over a computer?" My mother’s eyes brimmed with tears of profound betrayal. "Bridget, how could you? Your father just promised you twenty percent of the company! Why do you still harbor so much venom toward your sister?" "Dad, Mom, stop trying to rehabilitate her," Damon spat, standing tall. "She isn't our sister. She’s a street dog with no morals. Don't give her a single share, and throw her out of this house tonight. People like her belong behind bars. We're calling the police." The room held its breath, waiting for me to break down, plead, or scream. Instead, I gave a crisp, polite nod. "Great idea," I said calmly. "Call them." In the stunned silence that followed, I walked past Damon, reached toward the top shelf of the bookcase, and retrieved a tiny, matte-black action camera nestled behind a row of hardcover books. "Let’s let the detectives review the footage," I smiled, holding the lens up to the light. "Let's see who really tried to hurt whom." Alyssa’s face went entirely, beautifully bloodless.