Reclaimed for the Eighth Time and Ready to Quit Chapter 1

By the time the eighth billionaire couple showed up on my doorstep claiming I was their long-lost biological daughter, my nervous system was officially fried. My sanity was running on the thinnest vapor of reserve fuel.

At the lavish welcome-home gala thrown in the ballroom of their Greenwich estate, the girl they’d raised in my place—Sienna—cornered me near the indoor pool and publicly accused me of hurling her vintage Cartier diamond bracelet into the deep end.

My supposed biological parents, Charles and Evelyn Mercer, turned to me with that tight, wounded disappointment radiating from their tailored clothes.

"Jasmine," Charles began, his voice heavy with patriarchial grievance, "tell us the truth."

Standing on that polished Italian marble, looking at their expectant, suspicious eyes, an overwhelming wave of sheer exhaustion crushed me. I didn't want to explain myself. I didn't want to play the game. I just wanted to be done. Completely, undeniably done.

So, without a single word of defense, I pivoted on my designer heels and plunged straight into the heated pool, sinking like a brick to the mosaic floor.

Pandemonium broke out. Screams tore through the ballroom. Floundering hands dragged me to the surface, coughing water onto the deck while Charles and Evelyn hovered above me, their faces drained of color.

Sienna stood nearby, weeping into her lace handkerchief with theatrical fragility. My biological older brother, Graham Mercer, pushed his way through the soaking crowd, his expression dark with fury.

"You listen to me, Jasmine," he snarled, leaning over me with raw disgust. "Pull another attention-seeking stunt like this, and you can pack your bags and get the hell out of this family."

I wiped the chlorinated water from my eyes, looked past him at the long private driveway winding toward the estate gates, and got straight to my feet. "Copy that, Graham. I'll go throw myself into the Merritt Parkway traffic right now."

Before he could process my words, I broke into a dead sprint toward the exit.

Graham went pale. He chased me down the driveway, tackling me just as I reached the asphalt, dragging me backward while his chest heaved in panicked disbelief. He stared down at me as if I were some alien creature that defied all logic.

Later that same night, after the guests had been ushered away and the mansion fell into a suffocating quiet, Sienna orchestrated the next act. She stood on the edge of the third-floor terrace, clutching the stone balustrade, weeping into the night air.

"I shouldn't have stolen Jasmine's life," she sobbed, checking over her shoulder to make sure the family was watching. "I should just jump! I'll give everything back to her!"

She teetered there, perfectly balanced, waiting for Graham and our parents to tackle her with reassuring affection.

I walked out onto the stone patio, watching her perform. The hesitation in her stance was agonizing to watch.

"You're dragging this out," I muttered, stepping forward and shoving her out of the way. "Move. Let a professional handle it."

Before anyone could register what was happening, I vaulted cleanly over the balustrade.

The terrace erupted in terrified shrieks, the wind whipped violently past my ears, and then everything went blissfully black.

The low hum of hospital monitors pulled me back from the void.

A familiar, high-pitched whimpering drifted into my ears:

"I didn't say anything to her, Graham, I swear. She just shoved past me and jumped. I don't know what's wrong with her..."

"Stop crying, Sienna. I’ve got you." Graham's voice was low, defensive, and fiercely protective. "Mom, Dad, can't you see this is all an act? Jasmine calculated the whole thing just to make Sienna look like a monster! If she actually wanted to end her life, why did she jump toward the lower terrace awning? She knew the canvas canopy would break her fall! It’s all malice!"

Through half-open eyelids, I saw Graham gauging my parents’ hesitant expressions. Then his eyes flicked toward the hospital bed and met mine.

A cruel spark ignited in his gaze. Without warning, he stepped forward, gripped my hospital gown, and yanked me violently off the mattress. He dragged me across the private suite, shoving my chest against the wide window ledge.

"Look, Mom! Look, Dad!" Graham shouted, pressing me against the cold glass. "We're on the thirtieth floor of Manhattan Presbyterian! Nothing underneath. No awnings, no bushes, just concrete. If she's really so eager to die, why isn't she jumping now? She’s a phony! A manipulative, toxic fraud!"

My head was pounding. Every muscle in my battered frame throbbed with a dull, bruising ache, and a wave of pure disappointment washed over me. Dammit. I survived again.

Then I looked down through the glass. The yellow cabs on the street below looked like tiny insects crawling along asphalt cracks. Thirtieth floor. Pure, unobstructed vertical drop.

A genuine smile spread across my face.

While Graham was still ranting to our parents, my arms were already wrapping around the window latch. The modern safety lock yielded under my desperate, frantic wrenching, and before Graham could finish his sentence, my torso was already halfway out the frame, leaning into the intoxicating pull of gravity.

Silence swallowed the room for half a second.

Then the room erupted into sheer, unadulterated chaos.

Screams. Frantic footsteps. Graham’s voice cracked into a pitch I hadn't heard before.

I kicked, writhed, and clawed at the sill, trying with every ounce of strength to launch myself into the open air. Four pairs of hands grabbed my waist, my legs, the fabric of my gown, grunting and weeping as they dragged my squirming body backward into the room, finally pinning me onto the bed like a feral animal.

Graham stood panting, his hair wild, his mouth opening to speak—until a sharp crack echoed through the room.

Charles slammed the window shut, locked it with trembling fingers, and wheeled around, pointing a finger at his son.

"Shut your mouth!" Charles roared, his chest heaving, his face gray. "Shut up right now! Have you ever seen someone try to 'fake' attention like that? Jasmine is your blood sister! Look at what you've driven her to!"

Evelyn was shaking, tears running down her cheeks. She moved slowly toward my bedside, reaching out a trembling hand. "Jasmine... sweetheart..."

Before her fingers could touch me, Sienna collapsed onto a visitor’s chair, clutching her chest, weeping hysterically.

"It’s all my fault," Sienna gasped, fighting for breath. "Jasmine hates me this much because I'm here. I should just pack my bags and go into foster care or an apartment. I'll leave..."

My parents' hands froze instantly. The compassion vanished, replaced by panic.

"Sienna, stop talking like that!" Evelyn rushed to her side, wrapping her in a tight embrace. "You are our daughter. You will always be a Mercer. No one is replacing you, ever!"

Graham planted himself firmly in front of Sienna like a human shield, his eyes blazing. "I only have one sister, and her name is Sienna Mercer. If anyone leaves this family, it won't be you!"

If this had been the first time I heard those words, my heart might have cracked in two.

Unfortunately, this was my eighth time.

I had heard this exact melodrama, beat for beat, script for script, across seven different wealthy families. I knew the dialogue by heart. The only emotion left in me was a profound, suffocating nausea.

A visceral wave of sickness hit me. Looking at their frantic, performative faces, memory fragments began floating up from the dark corners of my mind.

Years ago, I had been the ultimate stray. Amnesiac, broke, shivering on a frozen bench in upstate New York, starving to death. When an automated mechanical voice—a System—spoke inside my skull, announcing that I was the chosen protagonist of a "True Heiress Redemption" narrative and that completing the mission would earn me a massive financial payout, I signed the cosmic contract just to buy a warm meal.

Except the System’s navigation parameters had been completely corrupted.

Instead of guiding me to my actual family, it steered me through seven consecutive cycles of agonizing rich-girl torture porn. In every single household, I was the biological daughter returned from the gutter, framed by a delicate foster sister, despised by a protective older brother, and discarded by emotionally bankrupt parents.

By the end of the seventh family, I had earned a severe case of emotional PTSD. The System declared my trauma an "occupational hazard" and granted me a hundred-million-dollar early retirement settlement.

I was literally standing at the threshold of cashing out when the Mercer family tracked me down.

“Host, are you entirely sure you want to abandon this final mission?” the System’s voice chimed inside my head right at that moment. “I swear on my primary core code, this time the target coordinates are accurate. The Mercers are your genuine flesh and blood... But if you insist on terminating the contract, the protocol hasn't changed. You simply have to die within this narrative realm to trigger the final severance payout.”

I was currently haggling with the System in my thoughts when Graham’s sharp bark yanked me back to reality.

"Jasmine! Look at what you’ve done!"

I looked up. His eyes were dark with accusing thunder.