Queen of Wild Cards novel Chapter 2

Stella laughed brightly. "Don't be nervous, Miranda. I'm not doing anything, just checking if the battery is still holding a charge. If it's dead, I'll have to go inside and plug it in."

Frederick forced himself to remain calm. "What exactly do you want, Stella?"

He hadn't seen this daughter of his in ten years; how had she grown up into such a savage?

"Nothing much. Just coming back to my own house. You wouldn't let me in this morning, so when the civilized route failed, I had to get creative. Even if you called security, they couldn't do anything to me. Is it a crime to enter my own home?"

She had already stopped by this morning, but Frederick had declared he had no such daughter and refused her entry. Since the polite approach didn't work, she had to resort to brute force.

Recovering from her fright, Miranda glared resentfully. "Do you have any manners at all? Your behavior is no different from a common burglar. If the neighbors find out, you'll humiliate us all."

Stella's voice dropped a few degrees. "I had a mother to give birth to me, but she died early. I didn't have a father to raise me or teach me, so I guess I never learned what manners are."

"Besides, you're just a homewrecker. Where do you get the nerve to talk about humiliation? You lost your dignity a decade ago."

Ten years ago, her mother had died of an illness. Less than six months later, her father married Miranda and brought her into the house, along with a nine-year-old Chloe. That was when she realized her father had been hiding a secret family all along.

Frederick bristled at Stella's words. "You... you ungrateful brat! You are not welcome here. Look at you, causing absolute chaos the second you arrive. Leave, now!"

She had been gone for ten years; why come back now? Couldn't they just go their separate ways in peace?

"I know you don't want me here, and believe me, I don't want to be here either," Stella said as she strolled into the house. "I came back to collect my mother's ashes and the belongings she left for me. Hand them over, and I'll walk right back out that door so I don't have to look at your miserable faces anymore."

Her second mentor had relayed this message from her grandfather: once she turned twenty, she had to return to the Hawthorne Family and reclaim what belonged to her mother.