She Was the Treasure All Along novel Chapter 1

“You poisoned me! How did I end up with a sister as vicious as you?”

Hamilton Sampson slammed his cutlery onto the floor by her feet. As he coughed up dark blood, he snarled, “If Quiana hadn’t warned me, you were going to kill me, weren’t you?”

“Hamilton, I told you—there’s no poison in it,” Loyce Sampson said. “There’s an ingredient that makes you cough up old, clotted blood. That’s the only way your condition improves.”

Her gaze flicked to the bowl of broth spilled across the floor, and a flash of genuine pain crossed her eyes. She’d spent a long time, and a lot of money, tracking down those compounds, and now it was all wasted.

Quiana, the girl who’d been adopted into the Sampson family, stood close to Hamilton with a medical textbook hugged to her chest. Her voice shook as if she were on the verge of tears. “Loyce… please stop lying. Byron already had your medicine tested. They found severe toxicity in it.”

Loyce shot her a look, the contempt in her expression impossible to hide. “Idiot! Most potent meds come with risks. And with Hamilton as bad as he is, you don’t get results with something gentle. You hit hard, or you don’t get anywhere.”

Tears pooled in Quiana’s eyes. “He’s coughing up blood and you’re still making excuses! We’re med students, not miracle workers. Stop trying to play hero.”

She stepped forward, pleading through her sobs. “I found someone—a real expert. She gave me a formula that can save Hamilton. Just admit you were wrong, okay? Let us use her treatment first.”

Hamilton coughed again, then snapped, “Loyce! You fed me some sketchy medicine, and now you’re insulting Quiana too? If you had even half her heart,” His voice rose. “Apologize. Now.”

Loyce straightened, her posture rigid. She looked at him with flat, steady eyes. “I’m trying to save you. What exactly am I supposed to be sorry for? Apologize to her? Not happening!”

“Fine. Fine! You’re impossible!” Hamilton’s face twisted with rage. He grabbed the whip at his side and surged to his feet, swinging it at her. “Get out! You’re not part of this family anymore. I’m not keeping a poisoner under my roof! I’d rather raise a dog—at least a dog knows loyalty!”

Loyce took two quick steps back and the whip cracked through empty air.

Suddenly, footsteps sounded from upstairs. A beat later, a backpack dropped at her feet.

Byron Sampson—her second brother—came down with an expression like ice. “I’ll be honest with you. Quiana is our real sister. We kept it from you all these years because we didn’t want you to feel some kind of way about it. But now we’ve seen what you’re really like.”

“If you insist you did nothing wrong, then leave. From now on, Quiana’s the only one we’re standing behind. You can give up the comfort you’ve been living in and go back to wherever you came from.”

This wasn’t the first time Loyce had been threatened like that. She’d been pushed down and squeezed dry for years in the Sampson family. But hearing that she’d been the outsider all along, something inside her loosened—so much that she felt almost light.

Finally, she wouldn’t have to keep pouring her own work into a family that couldn’t tell gold from dirt. No wonder she’d always felt out of place. She was sharp enough to cut glass, and the rest of them… well. They were the kind of people who wore their brains like decoration.

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