The Golden Cage: A Rebirth Story Chapter 2

Julian was brought back to the Vanderbilt estate.

I didn't miss the suspicion in Mrs. Vanderbilt’s eyes. She would arrange a DNA test very soon. After all, a random orphan looking exactly like her husband screamed "illegitimate child."

In my past life, an eighteen-year-old Julian was discovered by my father’s assistant working at a construction site.

In that timeline, he had been adopted by a wealthy couple who ran a business. But no one knew that was the beginning of his descent into madness.

The wealthy husband was a pervert with violent tendencies; he had long ago beaten his wife into infertility. Julian’s arrival just gave him a new punching bag.

Later, when Julian was thirteen, the man noticed how handsome his adopted son was becoming and got twisted ideas. He tried to assault Julian while the wife was out.

In the struggle, Julian stabbed the man to death.

He didn't spare the wife when she returned, either. In a fit of rage and trauma, he dismembered them both.

Because he was under fourteen and the circumstances were complex, he was sent to juvenile detention for three years. When he got out, he had no education and no home. He drifted for two more years before the Vanderbilts found him.

He told me all of this while he kept me prisoner in my past life. He said he hated me. He hated that I stole the life that should have been his.

...

Back in the present, when Father heard I brought a boy back from the orphanage, he didn't care much. If adopting a playmate made his daughter happy, fine.

But when Mr. Vanderbilt saw Julian’s face, he exchanged a look with his wife. The suspicion took root instantly.

Money buys efficiency. The DNA results came back the next day.

Julian was biologically related to both Mr. and Mrs. Vanderbilt. I, however, was not.

Unlike the public scandal of my past life, this time, the Vanderbilts hid the fact that I wasn't their blood. They simply announced to the public that Julian was their long-lost son.

I was hailed as a "little lucky star" who had serendipitously found her brother.