They sang "Happy Birthday" while I stared at my dead mother's ring on my stepsister's finger. The candlelight flickered across the restaurant table, casting shadows on faces that pretended to love me. Twenty-five candles. Twenty-five years of life, seven of them spent watching Paige—my stepmother—systematically erase my mother's memory from our home. But this? This was different. "Make a wish, Ellie!" Kiara chirped, her hand—the one wearing my mother's sapphire ring—gesturing toward the cake. My throat closed. I couldn't breathe, couldn't think past the gold band with three small sapphires that had lived in my memory since childhood. The ring my mother wore every single day. The ring that was supposed to be mine. "Elliana?" My father's voice cut through the fog. "The candles are melting." I looked up at him. At his weathered face, his tired eyes that had stopped really seeing me around the same time he married Paige. When was that? Six months after Mom died? No, five. Five months of grief before he replaced her with a woman who smiled like a shark. "Where did you get that ring?" My voice came out steadier than I felt. Kiara's perfectly manicured hand froze halfway to her wine glass. "What?" "The ring. On your left hand." I pointed, my finger trembling now. "Where did you get it?" The table went silent. Dad set down his fork. Paige's expression shifted—just slightly, just enough that I knew she understood exactly what I was asking. "Oh, this?" Kiara held up her hand, letting the sapphires catch the light. "Cole proposed last week! Can you believe it? We wanted to announce it tonight, at your birthday dinner. Isn't that sweet? Sharing your special day?" My special day. The day that was supposed to be about me, now hijacked for Kiara's engagement announcement. Of course. "That's my mother's ring." The words fell like stones into water. Paige laughed. Actually laughed. "Elliana, darling, don't be dramatic. Your mother had many rings—" "Three sapphires. Gold band. Engraved inside with my parents' wedding date." I stood up, my chair scraping against the floor. "Let me see the inside." "Sit down," Dad hissed. "You're making a scene." "I'm making a scene?" I stared at him, this stranger wearing my father's face. "She's wearing Mom's ring. The one from the safe. The one you promised would be mine when I turned twenty-five." Something flickered in his eyes. Guilt? Recognition? It died as quickly as it appeared. "Richard, I told you she'd react this way." Paige placed her hand on Dad's arm, her voice dripping with practiced patience. "Elliana has always had such an... active imagination about her mother's belongings." "Active imagination?" My voice rose. "I have pictures. I have Mom's jewelry inventory—she documented everything for me. That ring is in her papers, listed specifically for me." "Papers can be misremembered," Paige said smoothly. "After all, you were so young when she passed. Grief does strange things to memory." I turned to Kiara. "Take it off. Let me see the engraving." She pulled her hand back, cradling it against her chest like I might lunge across the table. "Cole gave this to me. It's mine." "Cole gave you stolen property." "Elliana Marie!" Dad's fist hit the table, rattling the dishes. "That is enough. Apologize to your sister." "She's not my sister." The words came out cold, final. "And that is my mother's ring." Other diners were staring now. A waiter hovered nearby, uncertain. Paige's mouth curved into a smile that didn't reach her eyes—the expression of someone who'd already won and was just waiting for me to realize it. "I bought that ring for Kiara's engagement," Paige announced, loud enough for nearby tables to hear. "From an estate sale three months ago. I have the receipt. What I don't have is patience for these constant accusations and delusions." "You're lying." "Am I?" She pulled out her phone with theatrical precision, scrolling through photos. "Here. The receipt from Hartley Estate Sales. Dated September fifteenth. One sapphire ring, three stones, gold band. Paid in full." She turned the screen toward me. The receipt looked real. Professional. Exactly the kind of thing Paige would prepare in advance because she'd planned this. Of course she'd planned this. "You took it from the safe," I said quietly. "You've been taking everything. Mom's jewelry, her art collection, the silver tea set her grandmother left her. You've been selling it all or keeping it for Kiara, and Dad just lets you because he can't even look at anything that reminds him of her." Dad's face had gone pale. "Lower your voice." "Why? Afraid people will know the truth? That you let your new wife rob your daughter blind?" "I have given you everything," Paige said, her voice sharp now, the mask slipping. "A home. A family. A sister who loves you despite your constant jealousy and bitterness. And this is how you repay us? By ruining Kiara's engagement announcement with paranoid fantasies?" "They're not fantasies!" "Then prove it." Paige leaned back, triumphant. "Show us these papers you claim to have. This inventory. Bring evidence, Elliana, or stop slandering me in public." My stomach dropped. The papers. Mom's papers. They'd been in my room. In the bottom drawer of my dresser, in a locked box. The locked box that had disappeared two months ago. Paige's smile widened as she watched the realization cross my face.