Escaping the Genius Billionaires

"I'm the real daughter." Her voice split the room open. "You stole my life." She stood in the middle of our living room in couture, flanked by a lawyer with a briefcase, holding up a set of DNA results like a warrant.

My brother, the one with the 160 IQ, smirked. My mother pushed her goldrimmed glasses up her nose. My father shut his journal hard enough to rattle the coffee table. And me?

I started crying. Not the way she expected.

I crossed the room in three steps and grabbed both her hands like she'd just dragged me out of a burning car. "Thank God." I shoved my black card and the house keys into her palms. "Sis.

You finally came. My IQ does not belong in this family. I'm leaving right now." The whole room froze. So did she. She'd come ready for screaming. For clawing.

For a girl on the floor begging to keep her seat at the table. What she didn't know was that I'd been waiting eighteen years for this.

Six weeks from now, the idiot this family threw away would crack her genius brother's toptier encryption in three minutes, in front of every single one of them.

Then she'd hand a billiondollar empire back like a plate she didn't order, walk out, and go home to a 430squarefoot walkup for her mom's pot roast. Chapter 1 A 20 in English.

A 15 in math. Enough failed classes that my school put it in writing and threw me out. Brains are a lottery. Everyone in my family won.

My mother, Constance Sinclair, chairwoman of Sinclair Group. They call her the Bulldozer. She reads a quarterly report faster than I read a comic.

My father, Julian Ashford, member of the National Academy of Sciences. His head holds two things: quantum mechanics and black holes. My brother, Desmond. IQ of 160.

Reads a page once and owns it forever. I was still working on my times tables when he started doing calculus in his head. And then there's me. Theodora Ashford.

Right now our fivethousandsquarefoot living room was a walkin freezer. "Teddy.

Would you like to explain this notice of academic dismissal to me?" My mother pushed her glasses up.

Her voice stayed perfectly level, which was so much worse than yelling. "Mom, I think the chairs at school are bad for my posture.

It was affecting my performance." I was curled into the corner of the couch with half an apple I hadn't finished.

My father slammed his journal down on the table. "Three generations of Harvard. Two of MIT.

And this family produces one." He looked at me like I was a lab result that had come back wrong. "One screwup." "Dad, genetic mutation is a legitimate scientific phenomenon.

You should be studying me, not yelling at me." I said it mostly to the apple.

Desmond sat beside him, turning a Rubik's Cube in one hand. "Study you," he said. "You mean research how brain cells devolve into singlecelled organisms." I opened my mouth to fire back.

Mr. Lee came through the doorway at a half run, which he never did. "Dr. Ashford. Ms.

Sinclair." He was out of breath. "There's a young woman outside who says she's— she says she's the real Ashford daughter. She brought a lawyer." The door opened.

A girl walked in wearing a white Chanel suit. All clean, expensive lines. The kind that makes everyone else in a room check their own posture. She had my mother's face.

Same jaw, same cold, exact way of looking at things. Anyone with eyes could see it. "Ms. Sinclair. Dr. Ashford.

These are the DNA results." Chapter 2 She threw the file down on the table and stepped back. No wasted motion. "My name is Priscilla Hale.

Eighteen years ago, a hospital made a mistake, and I went home with a workingclass family." She turned her head. "And the person who took my place doesn't seem to have done much with the Ashford name." Her eyes swept over me and dismissed me in the same motion. "You're Teddy, right?

How does it feel, living someone else's life?" I stared at the report in her hand. My whole body started shaking. She read it as fear. Her smile got sharper. "What is it?

Going to miss all this? The designer bags? The cars?" "No. No, that's not it." I shot up off the couch, crossed the room, and grabbed her hands with both of mine. "Sis.

My actual sister. You came." My eyes were streaming. My voice cracked in half. "Do you have any idea how long I've waited for this?" "Here, take the house keys. Take my black card.

This is Dad's paper he hasn't finished reading, this is Mom's investment plan for next quarter." I emptied every pocket I had into her arms. "Starting today, you're the Ashford daughter.

You get into Harvard. You inherit the company. You get to go headtohead with my psycho brother on IQ." Priscilla stood frozen with her hands full of my life.

Whatever she'd rehearsed on the drive over was stuck somewhere in her throat. "What are you— what are you playing at?" "Nothing!

I swear, nothing!" I wiped my face with my sleeve and shouted over my shoulder at my mother. "Mom! The woman who saved my life is here! Get out the family trust documents.

Strike my name off the beneficiary list and put my sister's in." "Whoever wants this dynasty can have it.

With my IQ, I'm not even qualified to breathe the air in here." The living room went dead silent. Cold light went across my mother's lenses.

My father's eyebrows knotted so tight they nearly touched. Desmond's Rubik's Cube made a small, dry click. It came apart in his hand. Priscilla recovered fast.

That was the thing about her. She was elite all the way down.

She pushed my hands off, straightened her collar, and turned to my parents like I'd stopped existing. "Since we all know the truth now, I'd like to move in today." "As for the impostor, the law is fairly clear.

She goes back where she came from." She pointed at me without looking at me. "Her real parents are ordinary working people.

They live in a fourhundredandthirtysquarefoot walkup." "Teddy. That's your life." My eyes lit up. Four hundred and thirty square feet. A walkup. Working people.

Did that mean nobody would drag me out of bed at four in the morning to drill German vocabulary?

That I'd never again sit through my father explaining quantum entanglement over dinner?

That my mother would stop hauling me to charity galas where I got laughed at eighteen separate times for not being able to read a French menu? "Sis." I looked up at her, hopeful. "Just to be sure.

There's no calculus at my real parents' house, right?" Chapter 3 Priscilla looked at me like I'd just eaten a crayon in front of her. "They don't even know what calculus is.

Is that what you want?" "Yes! God, yes!" I almost broke into a happy dance right there on the rug. "Mom, Dad, did you hear that?

I get to go live like a normal person." My mother pulled in a slow breath. A vein jumped at her temple. "Teddy. You want to leave that badly." "Mom, it's not about wanting to.

I have to clear out so my sister can move in." I said it like I was doing everyone a favor, because I was. "Look at her. Look at that posture.

That's a girl who can read a billion dollars in contracts before lunch and still have opinions about the font." "Now look at me. I watch SpongeBob.

All I'd do here is drag down the family average and jinx the whole gene pool." My father's hands were shaking. "Ridiculous!

Blood or no blood, this family raised you for eighteen years. You'd get attached to a stray dog in eighteen years." "Dad, a dog at least guards the house.

I've lost my own house key three times. The dog's more use than I am." I looked at him with total sincerity. It seemed to make things worse.

Priscilla let out a short breath through her nose and crossed to the couch, sitting the way you sit when someone might photograph you. "Dr. Ashford, affection can be cultivated.

Genetics cannot be changed." "Three national Math Olympiad golds. Four languages.

I'm currently applying for early admission to Harvard." "I think we can agree I'm the daughter this family was built for." She turned her chin toward me. "Teddy.

Besides eating, what exactly can you do?" I gave it real thought. "I can also sleep." "Oh, and I can put away a thirtytwoounce bubble tea in one go without burping." Her face did something complicated. "Crude." She turned to my brother. "Desmond, right?

They tell me you're a genius. Good. I have academic questions I've been wanting to discuss with someone at my level." Desmond didn't look at her.

He hadn't stopped looking at me. "Teddy. Are you sure you want to go." It wasn't a question. I answered it like one anyway. "Going! Definitely going!

Anybody who tries to stop me is getting bitten!" I was up the stairs before anyone could move. Under ten minutes later I came back down with a beatup duffel bag.

Inside it: my comics and my snacks. Designer bags. Couture. Jewelry. None of it. Shackles. Humiliation. Physical evidence of my oppression by the ruling class. "Bye, Dad. Bye, Mom.

Sis, good luck with the inheritance. Shoot for taking Sinclair Group public on Nasdaq next year." And I walked out without so much as a backward glance.

I did stop in the doorway, though. It seemed rude not to. "Oh, one thing. My brother's a monster in the mornings. If he throws ice water on you at six a.m., don't call the police.

He's activating your brain cells." Priscilla's face locked up. I strolled out of that house like I owned it. The air out there was so goddamn sweet.

Priscilla had given me the address earlier, in the tone of a woman dropping a coin in a cup. "It's East Boston. The old part, past the tunnel.

The drainage is bad and the mosquitoes are worse in summer. Good luck to you." I'd just cleared the front gate when my phone buzzed. Desmond. Desmond: [Ran the probability model.

Given your survival skills, you won't make it a week.] Desmond: [Day seven, we come get you. You don't get a vote.] I looked at the screen and typed back one word.

Me: [Bet.] Chapter 4 I got a car and went straight to the socalled "projects." The second I saw that neighborhood, rundown and loud and completely alive, I wanted to kneel down and kiss the pavement.

There was a cart out front selling corn dogs, a buck apiece. There were shirtless old guys playing chess on a folding table.

There were kids everywhere, running in packs like they had somewhere to be. This was civilization. This was my arena. I found Apartment 3B and knocked.

A middleaged woman opened the door in an apron, still holding a spatula. She saw me and stopped breathing. "You.

You're Teddy?" Something cracked open in my chest and I just started bawling. "Mom! I found my people!" I threw my arms around her. She smelled like cooking grease and fried onions.

Not the cold, expensive Chanel No. 5 my mother wore. She smelled like pot roast. "Oh, sweetheart. Look at you.

They gave you a hard time, didn't they." She pulled me inside fast, like the hallway might take me back. The place was small.

Put a couch in the living room and you were basically out of floor. But the wallpaper had little flowers on it. There was a crocheted doily over the TV.

On the coffee table sat a bowl of clementines, already peeled. "Teddy, honey.

Cilla, is she back with them now?" My father came out of the bedroom, rubbing his hands together, not sure what to do with them. "Yeah, she went back. She's thrilled.

She's got a few billion dollars to inherit." I dropped onto a folding stool and shoved a clementine in my mouth. "Dad. Mom.

Does your house, sorry, does our house have a curfew?" He blinked at me. "A what? You come home whenever you want." "Okay.

Do I have to be up at five every morning for vocabulary drills?" My mother laughed out loud. "Vocabulary? Baby, I can barely get through the alphabet.

You sleep till whenever you feel like it." "And at dinner.

Do we have to analyze global markets, or fusion reactors, or anything like that?" My father howled. "At this table we discuss whether ground beef went up fifty cents, and whether the Hendersons' dog had her puppies yet." The tears came back and just kept coming. "What is it, honey?

Is it the apartment? Is it too small?" My mother panicked and started wiping my face with her thumb. "No. I'm just really happy." I could barely get it out. "Mom. I want pot roast.

The fatty kind, where it falls apart. And I want three helpings." At the Ashford house, a girl had to keep a debutante figure.

That meant half a cup of brown rice per meal, and a sad little salad that tasted like wet paper. "You got it! I'll start it right now!" That night I slept in a narrow, soft bed.

Cars honked somewhere outside the window, and it was the best sleep of my life. No alarm. No code to memorize before sunrise.

No Desmond, and no version of that look he gives things that aren't working properly. I slept until noon, when somebody started pounding on the door. I went to open it, yawning.

Priscilla was standing in the hallway. No suit. No lawyer. Just a tracksuit and a face I didn't recognize. Chapter 5