She Copied Every Evil Move

Down in the Underworld, I was legendary for one thing: I was a shameless mimic. I copied the Grim Reapers so obsessively, perfecting every flick of their scythes and every solemn whisper, that one afternoon I accidentally reaped the wrong soul. The King of the Underworld flew into a fury, gave my backside a celestial boot, and kicked me straight back into the realm of the living—shoving my wayward spirit into the body of an heiress who was never supposed to die in the first place. The second my eyelids fluttered open, I found myself dropped into the middle of a textbook domestic melodrama: deadbeat patriarch cornering his wife into a divorce. The other woman stood in the center of the plush living room, cupping a barely visible bump beneath her silk blouse. Tears hung trembling on the rims of her mascara-laden eyelashes, delicate as morning dew. "Helen, please," she whimpered, her voice pitched at that exact frequency designed to make every man in earshot want to play white knight. "I never meant to come between you two. If you really can’t bear the thought of this innocent baby existing... I’ll just smash my head against the marble table and end it for both of us!" She let out a tragic sob and threw herself toward the edge of the coffee table. "Please." Did she honestly think she could out-act me? Before her knees even bent, my hand shot out. I grabbed a hefty antique blue-and-white porcelain vase from the pedestal beside me and smashed it straight over my own skull. … Warm, thick blood rushed down my forehead, flooding into my lash line and tinting the entire room a violent, theatrical crimson. Candice froze mid-lunge. Her manicured fingers hadn’t even grazed the lacquered mahogany of the table. My new father, Charles Hastings, practically launched himself off the Italian leather sofa. I locked eyes with Candice, drew in a shuddering breath, and let the tears erupt in a breathtaking, unrestrained torrent. My knees buckled with poetic precision, and I crumpled directly beside the jagged shards of porcelain. "Dad," I gasped, my voice catching on the exact same fragile, trembling pitch Candice had just used. "I didn't mean to. I’m so sorry. If Candice hates me so much that she can’t stand breathing the same air as me... maybe I should just die right now so she doesn't have to!" Every syllable was a carbon copy of her pathetic, breathy cadence. Candice stood rooted to the spot, her jaw slack. Charles turned an alarming shade of gray-green. Only my mother, Helen, reacted like a human being. A sharp, terrified gasp tore from her throat as she threw herself onto the rug beside me, her hands trembling violently as she tried to stem the flow of blood pulsing from my forehead. "Willa!" she cried, her voice cracking. "Oh God, Willa!" I leaned into the rhythm of her panic, shaking like a leaf caught in an autumn gale, and clamped both hands onto her forearms with a death grip. "Mom, it hurts so bad," I whimpered, projecting my voice so every corner of the high-ceilinged room caught the acoustic tragedy. "Candice said if I didn't die, she’d kill herself and the baby. I was so scared for them... I thought I should just go first..." Candice snapped out of her stupor and looked desperately at Charles. "Charles, I didn't—I never said that! I was just—" "Dad!" I cut her off instantly, shrinking back with wide, terrified eyes, letting the tears pool and spill over like a broken dam. "I just... I just love this family too much! I didn't want to tear you apart!" Charles took half a step backward. His silk tie had gone crooked. His finger trembled in the air, pointing at me, but his mouth opened and closed without a single sound coming out. I wiped a palm across my face, smearing the crimson mess across my cheek, and casually dragged my bloody fingers along the immaculate ivory wool rug. Candice’s gaze dropped to the crimson smear, her complexion draining until she looked like parchment. "You... you're insane! You're an absolute lunatic!" I mirrored her instantaneously, pointing a trembling finger back at her and shrieking at double her volume: "You... you're an absolute lunatic!" The pitch was so piercing she reflexively clapped both hands over her ears. Charles finally found his lungs. "Enough!" he bellowed. Like a marionette with cut strings, I instantly collapsed into a pathetic little ball in the corner, curling my knees to my chest, my shoulders heaving with silent, rhythmic sobs—the exact posture Candice had struck five minutes earlier. Helen stood up. It was a slow, deliberate movement, shielding me entirely behind the line of her body. For the first time since this farce began, she looked Charles dead in the eye, her posture stiffening with a cold, terrifying clarity. "If you want a divorce, Charles, take it," she said, her voice dropping into a register of icy finality. "But if you think I will stand by while you drive my daughter to her grave, you are sorely mistaken." Charles’s eyes darted away for a fraction of a second before he smoothly adjusted his mask, settling into the persona of a deeply wounded patriarch. "Helen, you're twisting this," he murmured, his voice dripping with synthetic regret. "The girl isn't in her right mind. Look at her—she needs an ER, right now." He took a step toward me, reaching out a hand to play the concerned father. I recoiled violently, pressing myself harder into the drywall, shivering with Candice’s trademark wide-eyed fragility. "Don't touch me! Auntie Candice will get jealous!" Charles’s hand froze mid-air, fingers hovering awkwardly in the empty space between us. Helen didn't wait for him to recover. She hooked an arm beneath my shoulders and hauled me toward the foyer. As we reached the double doors, I glanced back over my shoulder. Through the curtain of drying blood, I flashed Candice a blinding, cheerful grin, baring every single white tooth. Coupled with the scarlet streaks painting my pale face, the smile belonged in an asylum. Candice’s knees gave out, and she slid gracelessly down the front of the sofa onto the floor. ... The emergency room hallway reeked of cheap antiseptic and industrial lemon cleaner. The doctor gave me five stitches across the hairline. I refused the local anesthetic. After spending centuries around cauldrons of boiling sulfur and the icy depths of the underworld, five tiny pricks of a surgical needle felt like someone flicking a toothpick against my scalp. Helen stood by the edge of the gurney, clutching the discharge paperwork. Her eyes were rimmed with red, the skin beneath them bruised with exhaustion. I studied her, letting the exaggerated, trembling victimhood drop from my face until my expression was flat, cool, and razor-sharp. "Mom," I said quietly. "How much equity do you still hold in Hastings Enterprises?" Helen blinked, caught completely off-guard by the sudden shift in my voice. She hesitated, looking around the sterile curtained cubicle. "Twenty percent," she whispered. "Back when we first started the firm... when it was just the two of us working out of a rented garage. He transferred those shares into my name." My mind worked fast, running the numbers with bureaucratic underworld precision. Twenty percent. Not enough to launch a hostile takeover on her own, but more than enough to block major corporate resolutions. Charles couldn't afford to burn this bridge entirely—not yet. "He didn't bring Candice into our living room today to force a divorce," I said, pulling up my phone and sliding the screen toward her. I tapped the headline of the morning’s financial daily. "Hastings Enterprises just secured municipal permits for the Southside Clean Energy Corridor. But to break ground, he needs Grandfather's commercial parcel." Helen stared at the screen, her breath hitching. "Charles only cares about leverage," I continued calmly. "Parading his pregnant mistress in front of you was an ambush. He wants you emotionally gutted so you’ll hand over the land deed and your shares just to make the humiliation stop. He wants to bleed you dry, toss you out with pennies, and call it a clean break." Helen sank into the plastic visitor’s chair, her face utterly drained of color. She stared at me as though seeing a stranger. The dutiful, soft-spoken daughter she had raised would never have analyzed a corporate predator with such cold calculation. I didn't reach out to comfort her. If she wanted to reclaim what belonged to the Sutherland family, she had to build her own backbone from the rubble. A few heavy seconds ticked by. She took a slow, shuddering breath, her chin lifting just an inch. Down the hallway, the sharp clatter of leather dress shoes echoed against the linoleum. Keith, Charles’s executive assistant, pushed through the privacy curtain. He wore an expensive gray suit and held a silver fruit basket in one hand and a black Centurion card in the other. "Mr. Hastings sent this for Miss Willa," Keith said smoothly, holding out the card. "Half a million dollars for her medical expenses and emotional distress. Additionally, Mr. Hastings suggested it might be prudent to transfer the deed to your father’s land parcel into his name ahead of schedule. Oh—and he mentioned he’d love for Mrs. Hastings to prepare that whole roasted branzino he likes so much for dinner tonight." Helen’s knuckles turned white where her hands gripped her handbag. Before she could speak, I slid off the gurney and snatched the black card straight from Keith’s fingers. In the same fluid motion, I shoved the heavy basket of pineapples and imported pears into his chest. "I’ll take the card," I said cheerfully. "Take the fruit back to the penthouse. Candice looks like she’s suffering from severe cognitive decline; maybe the potassium will help. And tell Charles that if he wants roasted fish, he can hire a private chef. My mother’s hands are far too busy." I grabbed Keith by the lapels, spun him around, shoved him through the curtain, and let it snap shut behind him. I stared down at the black titanium card in my palm, feeling a thrilling prickle of adrenaline dance along my nerves. "Mom," I asked, turning back to her, "how exactly did Charles pull off that hostile land grab on the Eastside ten years ago without putting down a single cent of his own capital?" A bitter, humorless laugh escaped Helen’s lips. "He floated a fake foreign joint venture as bait. Created an offshore shell fund, dangled massive returns, and got the other side to reveal their proprietary balance sheets before pulling the rug out from under them." A slow, vicious smile spread across my face. "Perfect. Let’s play his favorite game." Using that half-million-dollar credit line as collateral, I mirrored Charles’s vintage playbook to the letter. I spun a dummy bridge-loan prospectus tied to an offshore shell entity in the Caymans. It took less than four hours for Candice’s degenerate, gambling-addicted younger brother, Cody, to swallow the hook whole. Desperate to get a piece of what looked like an untraceable high-yield laundering vehicle, Cody didn't just spill the beans on the three Cayman shell companies he managed for Charles—he practically tripped over himself sending me the encrypted ledger transfers, eager to prove his worth as an insider partner. When the financial trails lit up on my laptop screen, Helen went translucent. Her hand instinctively fluttered to her throat. "Willa... even with this," she murmured, shrinking back, "how can we fight him? Charles owns the network. He controls the board, the private lenders, the city contacts..." I took her icy fingers in mine. "Mom, Charles built his empire by consuming your father’s legacy from the inside out. Now, we’re going to swallow him whole. The Sutherland name doesn't end with a Hastings parasite." Helen stared at the glowing screen. Slowly, the panic in her gaze hardened into something cool, dense, and resolute. Her fingers tightened around mine. "He’s gutting the company," she whispered. "No," I corrected, snapping the laptop shut. "He’s gutting "your" company. Now come on. Let’s go home and see about that fish." ... By eight o’clock that evening, Helen and I walked through the arched front doors of the Hastings estate. The chandelier blazed overhead. Charles sat at the head of the long dining table, an unopened bottle of vintage cabernet beside his plate. At the center of the table rested a platter holding a whole roasted branzino, seasoned and garnished to perfection. Candice hovered near the credenza, wearing a modest linen dress, looking the picture of timid domesticity. "Charles said he was craving the branzino," she murmured, wringing her hands with exaggerated deference. "I... I spent all afternoon learning how to prepare it..." The modest, submissive homemaker routine was an art form. If I hadn't watched her try to orchestrate a faux suicide seven hours earlier, I might have applauded. Charles cleared his throat, waving a dismissive hand. "Sit down and eat. We’re still a family; there’s no need for theatrical grudges." Helen remained standing by the archway, motionless. I pulled out a heavy dining chair, took my seat, and picked up the silver fork. With clinical precision, I speared the roasted fish’s eyeball right out of the socket. I popped it into my mouth, bit down, and let the small, brittle cartilage crack audibly between my teeth. Candice turned green. I set the fork down with a gentle chime against the porcelain. In an instant, I adopted the exact timid, wounded pout Candice had worn all evening, letting two fat, glistening tears roll down my cheeks. "Auntie Candice," I whispered, sniffing softly. "Are you serving me this fish with its eyes wide open to remind me that if I cross you, I’ll end up dead without peace, too?" Candice waved her hands frantically. "What? No! Willa, how could you even twist it into something like that?" Ignoring her completely, I turned my tear-streaked face toward Charles. "Dad, I know Candice means well. But her brother Cody certainly doesn't. He’s running offshore dummy accounts in Grand Cayman, siphoning millions out of your corporate reserves as we speak." The dining room went dead silent. Candice’s jaw dropped. "Charles, she’s lying! She’s trying to poison you against my family!" I reached into my pocket, pulled out a sleek silver flash drive, and slapped it onto the linen tablecloth. "Here’s the complete transaction ledger Cody handed over this afternoon, Auntie," I said smoothly. "Every wire transfer. Including the overseas shell account used to purchase your limited-edition Birkin bag last Tuesday." Charles’s hand moved slowly across the table, picking up the drive. The overhead chandelier cast a heavy shadow over his eyes, carving deep lines into his jaw. He twirled the silver drive between two fingers, paused, and then slipped it into his suit pocket with a calm, practiced smile. "Willa’s growing up," he said smoothly. "She even knows how to tease her elders now." He reached out and patted Candice’s shivering shoulder with an affectionate, paternal touch. "Go on, Candice. Slice some fresh fruit for Willa. We’re having dinner as a family—let’s not let petty misunderstandings ruin the mood." Looking as though she’d just been granted a stay of execution, Candice scrambled toward the kitchen on wobbling legs. The second the swinging kitchen door clicked shut, Charles turned his back to us, whipped out his phone, and began typing furiously. I watched the tense line of his broad shoulders, a quiet, razor-thin smirk tugging at my lips. Behind me, Helen let out a low, humorless chuckle. "Quite the modern family you’ve assembled here, Charles." Without waiting for a response, she turned and headed up the sweeping marble staircase. Charles opened his mouth, taking a stride after her, but I stepped smoothly into his path, cutting off his line of sight. "Dad," I said, tilting my head with innocent concern. "Mom’s been through a lot today. I wouldn't bring up the Southside parcel tonight if I were you. Grandfather’s old legal counsel and his former board members are watching this project like hawks. If they get wind that you’re funding a side family with diverted corporate assets..." I let the sentence hang in the air like a noose. Charles’s pupils contracted into pinpricks. Within a second, the mask of the loving, patient father settled back over his face. "You handled this well, Willa," he said softly, his voice thick with calculated warmth. "I was blind to that woman’s greed. You make sure your mother rests tonight, understood?" "Of course, Dad," I replied with angelic obedience. From the kitchen threshold, Candice was gripping the doorframe so tightly her knuckles were white. I caught her eye, tilted my head, and silently mouthed four words: "Mimics kill green-eyed vipers." ... By seven the next morning, Candice was gone. The housekeeper informed us that Charles had had her car packed and sent back to her rented luxury midtown apartment before dawn. Charles sat at the head of the breakfast table, scanning the financial pages of the morning paper. Helen had not come down. I pulled out a chair and poured myself a cup of black coffee. Charles set his paper down and slid an embossed leather portfolio across the table. "You’ve shown initiative, Willa. This is the charter for our logistics subsidiary in New Jersey. It’s time you joined the firm and learned how to shoulder real responsibility." I pushed the portfolio right back across the marble. "I’m going into Headquarters. Project Development. I want the Southside Clean Energy Corridor." Charles’s eyes narrowed into slits. "You don't have the experience." "No," I replied, leaning forward with a pleasant, unwavering smile. "But I have Grandfather’s trust. Before he passed, he tied the development rights of that parcel to my personal signature. Without my sign-off, his estate lawyers won't release a single square foot of dirt to your contractors." Charles stared at me, his gaze hardening into something cold and predatory. I held his gaze, matching him beat for beat, blink for blink. After a long, suffocating minute, Charles leaned back. "Fine. Report to Project Development tomorrow morning." His voice dropped into a dangerous, gravelly register. "But if you tank this deal, your mother forfeits every single share of her twenty percent as liquidated damages to the board. Do we understand each other?" A classic Charles move: use my grandfather’s leverage while engineering a trap to swallow Helen’s remaining equity whole. I smiled broadly. "Thank you, Dad." After breakfast, I walked upstairs and pushed open the door to my mother’s bedroom. She was standing by the walk-in closet, quietly folding a cashmere cardigan. I leaned against the doorframe, getting straight to the point. "He put me on the Southside project. Mom, I need you to move in lockstep with me now." She paused, looking over her shoulder with dark, anxious eyes. "What are you planning?" I walked over and lowered my voice. "Next Friday, Charles is hosting the project launch gala at the Grand Hyatt. Every major player in the city will be in that ballroom—private equity, city council, state regulators. He plans to announce that the land parcel is officially secured. I need you to show up in full black-tie couture... and publicly announce that you are donating your entire twenty percent stake in Hastings Enterprises to a public charitable trust." Helen’s breath caught. She clutched the cardigan against her chest. "Donate it? Willa, that stock is the only shield we have left!" "In order to survive, you have to burn the bridge behind you," I said gently, taking her trembling hands and giving them a reassuring squeeze. "He’s been diluting those shares through shadow holdings for five years; they’re practically phantom paper anyway. But donating them publicly does two things: it buys us impenetrable social capital with the press, and it completely obliterates his ability to use that equity as collateral for his private mezzanine loans. Trust me, Mom. I am not going to let you lose." ... Project Development was Charles’s personal stronghold, overseen by a managing director named Wayne—a bloated, fifty-something corporate lifer who had survived by licking Charles’s boots. On my first morning, Wayne ushered me into what used to be a janitor’s supply closet on the fourteenth floor, outfitted with a scratched laminate desk. "Terribly sorry about the tight quarters, Miss Hastings," Wayne said with an oily, patronizing grin, dumping a foot-high stack of dusty binders onto my desk. "Company policy requires all new associates to familiarize themselves with historical documentation first." I looked at the trash heap, then straight up at him. "I want the unredacted capital expenditure sheet for the Southside project." Wayne’s smile vanished, replaced by an ugly sneer. "Listen to me, little girl. You're an exiled mascot Charles tossed into my department to keep you quiet. Sit in this closet, flip through those files, and don't make me call security to have you escorted to the curb." He turned toward the open door. "Security! Come show Miss Hastings—" I leaned back in the creaking task chair, spun my laptop screen toward him, and tapped the spacebar. On the screen was a detailed transaction audit of an offshore account registered under his sister-in-law’s maiden name, complete with seven-figure kickback transfers tied to municipal subcontractor bids. "Why the rush for security, Director Wayne?" I asked softly, sliding a printed formal complaint from the SEC’s financial fraud division across the laminate desk. "When Candice’s brother handed over his money-laundering channels to save his own skin, we noticed something funny: your sister-in-law was using the exact same intermediary pipeline. Do you think I mimic my father well?" Wayne’s eyes bulged as he read the case-intake confirmation. Cold sweat broke across his forehead, drenching his stiff white collar. His knees gave out, and he collapsed heavily into the visitor’s chair. "Get out! Close the damn door!" he choked out, barking at the guards who had just reached the threshold. Trembling like an addict in withdrawal, Wayne reached into his locked desk drawer, pulled out a thick red folder marked "CONFIDENTIAL BUDGET FORECAST", and slid it toward me with shaking hands. Ten minutes later, before I could finish cross-referencing the line items, Keith knocked and pushed the closet door open. "Miss Hastings. Mr. Hastings requests your presence in the executive suite immediately." When I walked into the corner office, Helen was already sitting stiffly on the velvet sofa, having clearly been brought in by force. Charles was standing by the floor-to-ceiling windows, casually clipping the tip of a Cuban cigar with a silver guillotine. "Amateur parlor tricks," Charles remarked smoothly without turning around. "Did you really think a few leaked spreadsheets would let you overturn the board?" He turned and casually tossed a photograph onto the glass coffee table. In the picture, an elderly man was strapped to a wheelchair in the middle of a dim, concrete warehouse, surrounded by heavily tattooed men in leather jackets. It was Walter—my grandfather’s most trusted estate manager, a man who had served our family for forty years. "Wisdom comes with age, Willa," Charles said, exhaling a thick plume of blue smoke. "That old relic managed to hide three core proprietary patents your grandfather registered before he died, along with a secret fifty-million-dollar liquidity reserve. All these years, he smiled to my face while quietly guarding the Sutherland family's final lifeline." Charles slammed a bound share-surrender agreement onto the table in front of Helen. "By noon tomorrow, you sign this, Helen. You surrender your twenty percent, and you sign over the rights to Walter’s trust. If you don't, that loyal old dog won't live to see Saturday morning." Helen’s eyes burned with furious tears. "Charles! Walter served my father before you even had a dime to your name! How can you be this monstrous?!" Charles merely offered a thin, dead smile. Helen’s hand shook violently. Broken by the thought of Walter dying a horrific death in some abandoned dockside warehouse, her fingers crept toward the silver pen on the table. I slammed my palm down over hers, pinning the pen to the glass. Charles let out a dry, mocking chuckle. "Willa, you're playing checkers in a grandmaster’s hall." I leaned forward across the desk, mimicking the exact nervous, predatory twitch Charles always developed at the corner of his mouth whenever he backed an opponent into a corner. "Dad," I whispered, holding his gaze with unblinking intensity. "I learned every single move from watching you. And while you were busy laying your trap... I went ahead and dug your grave."