The taxi eventually arrived at the gates of the Mills Estate.
I paid the driver and stepped out, watching the vehicle disappear down the road before turning toward the enormous iron gates that separated the estate from the outside world.
I walked through them and followed the long paved driveway toward the mansion, my steps growing slower as the familiar sight came into view.
The Mills mansion had always been an impressive place, with its elegant architecture, expansive gardens, towering windows, and perfectly maintained grounds reflecting the wealth and influence of the family that lived within it.
To outsiders, it was the kind of home people dreamed of entering.
To me, however, it had never truly been a home.
I had lived there for twenty years, yet I had never belonged.
I was an illegitimate daughter—a child my father could neither openly acknowledge nor completely discard.
From the moment I was born, I had been nothing more than an inconvenient stain on the respectable image he had spent decades building.
He couldn’t throw me out without raising questions, but neither could he acknowledge me publicly without risking the family name he had worked so hard to protect.
So he kept me.
Not because he loved me.
Not because I was his daughter.
But because my existence was a secret he couldn’t afford to expose.
For twenty years, I had learned to endure it.
I had learned when to speak, when silence was safer, when to lower my head, and when to make myself disappear before anyone remembered that I was there.
I had accepted every insult and humiliation because I had convinced myself that enduring them was simply the price I had to pay for having somewhere to live.
But as I approached the mansion that evening, the medical reports weighing heavily inside my bag, something about those lessons no longer felt important.
For the first time, I knew exactly how little time I had left.
And suddenly, I wasn’t sure I was willing to spend it enduring the same life I had spent the past twenty years surviving.
I had spent years allowing fear to dictate my every move.
I had learned to keep my head down, obey every order, and endure whatever was thrown at me because I believed I had no other choice.
But today was different.
Knowing that my life had been reduced to only a few remaining months had changed something inside me.
If I truly had so little time left, then I couldn’t continue wasting it trying to make myself small enough to avoid my father’s anger.
I hurried toward the entrance, slipping a hand into my bag to make sure the medical reports were still safely hidden inside.
The moment I stepped through the mansion doors, however, I found my father waiting for me.
He stood near the entrance with a whip clenched tightly in his hand, his expression dark with fury.
Judging by the look in his eyes, it was obvious that he had been waiting for me to return.
His gaze immediately settled on me, narrowing with anger.
“You insolent girl!
Where have you been the entire day?” he demanded, his voice echoing through the entrance hall.
“Didn’t I tell you to stay indoors?
How many times do I have to repeat myself before you learn to obey?” I remained silent.
Normally, I would have lowered my head at once and apologized before he had the chance to become even angrier.
But something inside me had changed.
The diagnosis I had received that afternoon was still fresh in my mind, and for the first time, the fear that had controlled me for most of my life no longer felt as powerful as it once had.
My father stepped closer, tightening his grip around the whip as his eyes remained fixed on me.
“You think you can ignore my orders whenever you please?” Before I could answer, his arm suddenly moved, and the whip came down.
Instead of allowing it to strike me, I instinctively raised my hand and caught it.
The sharp crack of the leather cutting through the air echoed through the entrance hall, and for several seconds, neither of us moved.