<h2>Out Of The Shadows: Tilda’s Brilliant Second Life Chapter 01</h2>


    The fire roared, spitting heat and smoke into the night.


    Tilda Jensony crumpled on the dusty floor, her body too weak to move. Smoke scraped down her throat, dragging cough after cough out of her lungs. Tears streamed uncontrobly, stinging her eyes.


    Her hair was a tangled mess, her face streaked with soot, yet nothing could hide her natural beauty.


    She couldn’t move. Someone had drugged herpletely paralyzed her.


    When had it happened?


    A sweet voice slipped through the chaos. “Well, you look awful, Tilda.”


    K Jenson walked toward her, wearing a white dress and a gas mask. Her voice, light and innocent, was the voice of a little girl who could never hurt anyone.


    At least, that’s what Tilda had once believed.


    “It was you?” She rasped, disbelief widening her eyes. “You drugged me?”


    K was her younger sister in name.


    “This is a little test,” K said, smiling behind the mask. “When Mom, Dad, and all our brothers walk in and see us like this … Tell me, who do you think they’ll believe? You, or me?”


    She pulled off her mask, fitted it gently onto Tilda’s face, then smudged ash across her own cheeks.


    Pulling on a pair of gloves, she slipped a cutter from her pocket and drew the de across her own forearm.


    Blood poured down her wrist.


    She tossed the cutter beside Tilda, peeled off the gloves, and slid them onto Tilda’s limp hands. Clutching her bleeding arm, she twisted her face into an expression of terror and screamed loudly.


    “Help! Daddy! Mommy! Someone help me! Tilda’s gone crazy!”


    The warehouse door mmed open.


    “K!”


    Tilda watched as her parents and all seven brothers rushed right past her—straight to K.


    “Dad, Mom, it hurts! It really hurts! Tilda went crazy! She tried to set me on fire and said I don’t deserve to be a Jensons! She even cut me!”


    Their eyes swept over K’s bleeding arm, her tear-streaked face, and her trembling like a wounded rabbit. Then their gaze shifted to Tilda—slumped on the floor, a gas mask covering her face, the bloody cutter at her side, gloves on her hands.


    “Russell Jenson’s face twisted with fury. He charged at Tilda and drove his foot into her stomach.


    “How did I end up with a daughter like you? You disgust me!””


    The kick tore through her insides.


    Her body ached, but her heart hurt even worse.


    She felt like her body was shattered into pieces.


    This was the same stomach that had once taken a bullet for him.


    She remembered—years ago, Russell had taken both girls to a business event when a man burst in with a gun.


    Without thinking, Tilda had stepped in front of him and taken the bullet, leaving a hole in her stomach.


    But Russell had fled with K, leaving her bleeding on the floor.


    It was the police—not her father—who got her to the hospital.


    She’d gone straight into the ICU, clinging to life by a thread.


    Dayster, the Jensons finally remembered her.


    They only left K’s side for a single hour to visit Tilda in the hospital.


    Russell had looked guilty.


    But the only thing he said in his defense was, “K is your little sister, and she’s adopted. Now that we’ve found you, she’s afraid of losing her ce in the family. As the older sister, you should be more understanding.”


    And just like that, something came up with K. The whole family rushed off in a hurry to take care of her.


    From the way they treated her, anyone looking in would have thought K was the real daughter.


    And Tilda? She was nothing more than a stand-in. A ceholder.


    Still, she believed him.


    She actually—pathetically—believed him.


    Because he was her father.


    Because she had waited so long to find her family.


    Because blood was supposed to mean something. She told herself the Jensons would never truly abandon their birth daughter.


    So, she gave in to K—again and again.


    Whatever K wanted, she handed over.


    Every gift, every opportunity—K chose first, and Tilda took whatever scraps were left.


    She convinced herself that if she kept giving and kept sacrificing, they would eventually ept her. That someday, they would love her as their own.


    Looking back now, what a joke.


    What a pathetic, cruel joke.


    She stared, hollow-eyed, as K was carried out of the burning warehouse, surrounded by frantic concern and urgency.<fn2c51> Find the newest release on find~novel</fn2c51>


    And they left her behind—like trash no one wanted.


    The mes closed in.


    Pain ripped through her as fire consumed her skin. The searing heat swallowed every breath, every thought.


    She could smell herself burning.


    Tilda shut her eyes. A single tear slipped from the corner.


    This life … I’ve done enough for them.


    I’ve paid the Jensons back in full—with my life. My obsession with family. My desperate hope. All of it—paid in full.


    If there’s a next life, let’s just be strangers.


    That night, the news broke across Slosa: an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts had gone up in mes. One charred body was recovered. But before it could reach the hospital for an autopsy, it mysteriously vanished.


    The next day, the Jenson Group released an official statement:


    We have severed all ties with the girl we once believed to be our biological daughter.


    From this day forward, K Jenson is the only daughter we recognize.


    Whatever Tilda Jenson did—or whatever became of her—is no longer our concern.


    And just like that, the girl who had once set gossip blogs aze as the Jensons’ long-lost daughter faded from the headlines—reced by newer, juicier scandals.


    Forgotten.