Hijacked: Taking Back My Billion-Dollar Life

Don’t get it twisted. I’m not the selfless heroine in some cheesy redemption arc. I’m the unlucky side character. The girl trapped in her own hijacked body.

She stole my life to play the savior for a brooding, toxic guy. She weaponized my face to be his ultimate, pathetic doormat.

That agonizing secondhand embarrassment that makes you want to crawl into a hole? That’s my face. The cash she’s blowing to buy his attention? That’s my bank account.

And the hands she used to shove my absolute best friend into a floor littered with shattered glass? My hands. I’m trapped behind my own eyes. Suffocating.

Watching Astrid’s blood spill over the jagged shards. She stole my money. She wore my face. She ruined my life. Oh, I’m going to make her pay. Every single drop.

Chapter 1 Astrid held out the wrapped box. Her eyes sparkled, offering it up like a priceless treasure from her trip. She had no clue.

The girl standing in front of her wasn't me anymore.

A parasite named Kayleigh had already crawled into my skin and taken the wheel. "Rosalind, you have to hear about—" Astrid started. Kayleigh cut her off.

My stolen eyes lit up with a feverish, desperate hunger. She shoved right past Astrid. She practically sprinted toward the door.

Thorne had just walked in, slinging his backpack over one shoulder, his jaw set in its usual icecold scowl. Kayleigh twisted my face into a cloying, shy simper. "Thorne.

You're here. I'm struggling so much in class. You're a guy, and guys are just wired better for this stuff.

You're so much smarter." A wave of pure nausea hit my gut. "I'm just so clumsy with the material," Kayleigh whined. "Can I ask the teacher to move my desk next to yours?

That way you can tutor me." She actually stuck her tongue out in a fake, playful little pout. I wanted to rip my own face off. Since when did guys have better brains?

Astrid and I had fought for the top spot in our grade every single semester. I consistently crushed Thorne's GPA. Thorne didn't even blink.

His features hardened into stone. "No." Kayleigh deflated, my shoulders slumping in pathetic disappointment.

Astrid scoffed, stepping between them. "Like anyone actually cares, Thorne." She reached out, grabbing my wrist to pull Kayleigh away. Kayleigh ripped my arm free.

She poured all her humiliated rage into the violent jerk. "Back off! Stay out of my business!" Astrid flinched. Confusion and genuine hurt bled into her expression. "Rosalind?

What's going on with you today? Did I do something wrong?" She held up the wrapped box again, her voice shaking slightly. "Look. I know you collect these glass mugs.

I saw this one and knew you needed it. I carried it the whole way back for you." Kayleigh swung her arm. She smacked the box right out of Astrid’s hands. Crash.

The glass slammed into the floor. Shattered into jagged, unforgiving splinters across the tiles. It wasn't enough for Kayleigh. She lunged forward and shoved Astrid. Hard.

Astrid wasn't bracing for it. Her heels slipped. She pitched backward. Right toward the field of razorsharp glass. Panic clawed up my throat, choking off my air.

Astrid twisted at the last second. She threw her hands back to break the fall. Flesh hit jagged edges. The shards bit deep into her palms.

Crimson spilled out, thick and fast, pooling on the floor. Astrid didn't even scream. She just sat there, staring at my face, totally numb to the physical agony. Rage.

Pure, blinding white noise ripped through my skull. I wanted to tear Kayleigh apart from the inside out. Astrid was my blood. My sister in everything but name.

How dare this parasite steal my life. How dare she break my best friend. How dare she! Chapter 2 Astrid just sat there. Dazed.

An almost imperceptible sadness fractured her expression as she looked up at the parasite wearing my face. "Rosalind… what is wrong with you?" Kayleigh glared down at her. "You go on vacation and remember to buy a gift for a friend with zero blood ties.

But what about Thorne? He's your actual halfbrother! Where's his gift?" She crossed her arms, shooting her a look of toxic superiority. "Are you that threatened by him?

Terrified he's gonna fight you for the family empire? God, you're a monster. Ignoring your own blood over money. Ros—the old me was blind for ever hanging out with someone so toxic.

What makes you think you're better than him? So what if he was born out of wedlock? He didn't ask for that!

The adults screwed up, not him!" "You're just greedy," Kayleigh sneered. "You want to hoard the entire empire, but Thorne has a stake in it too. You can't just freeze him out!

He's your dad's son. Legally, he has the exact same inheritance rights as you do." A smug, knowing smirk twisted my lips. "Newsflash. Thorne is the son.

You’re just a daughter who’s going to marry off and change her last name anyway. No dynasty is handing the reins to an outsider.

The whole empire belongs to Thorne in the end, so stop acting so entitled to his money!

And if you don't care about Thorne, I don't care about your stupid gift!" Kayleigh spun around. She flashed Thorne a shamelessly desperate, fawning smile.

She stepped right over Astrid.

As Kayleigh brushed past her, Astrid's voice broke the silence, barely louder than a breath. "Are you… actually Rosalind?" Astrid slumped against the floor.

The bleeding from her jagged cuts was slowing, the blood pooling dark and tacky on the tiles, but what truly shattered my heart was the look in her eyes—completely dead, stripped of all their usual light.

A brutal, suffocating pressure slammed into my chest. My lungs forgot how to pull in air. Every nerve ending in my trapped consciousness screamed. Astrid.

I would have burned the world down before letting a single scratch touch her. How dare this parasite weaponize my own limbs to rip my best friend to shreds.

Kayleigh didn't even flinch.

Instead, a smug, sickening wave of triumph radiated from her as she mentally chimed in with Cipher—the system that helped her hijack my life. "When I read this book back in the real world, Thorne broke my heart," she gushed to Cipher. "He was supposed to be this untouchable golden boy, but he grew up in the projects with his single mom.

Everyone called him a bastard. He suffered so much, and the girl next door was his only saving grace. Then his rich dad finally claimed him.

He just wanted to grind, secure the family empire, and give his girl the life she deserved. He had to force himself to push her away to do it." "And what did he get?

His evil halfsister fought him tooth and nail for the company. And the original owner of this body constantly bullied and gaslit him." "The most tragic part?

He actually pulled it off," Kayleigh thought, her internal voice dripping with twisted pity. "He got the entire empire. He masterminded the perfect revenge.

He set it up so Astrid, that toxic sister, was forced to marry an abusive psycho who beat her every day.

And he totally destroyed Rosalind's family, leaving that side character with nothing." "But his only ray of light—his childhood sweetheart—was already swept off her feet by the main lead.

He won the world, but he lost his one true love!" "It’s just too devastating.

Thinking about him sitting on a billiondollar throne, feeling dead inside, forced to watch the love of his life marry someone else and have their babies… it physically hurts my chest.

That's why I abandoned my own parents to cross over. I had to save him!" Chapter 3 "My parents will survive without me.

They have my little brother," Kayleigh thought, her internal monologue practically dripping with delusion. "But if Thorne doesn't have me?

He has nothing." She stared at his retreating back, my stolen eyes pooling with a sickening, obsessive devotion. "I'll make him fall for me. I'll use my love to fix him.

To pull him out of the dark." Cipher's metallic voice buzzed in my skull. "You are completely correct, host." My stomach violently churned at her sick logic.

Was this her twisted idea of saving someone? Forcing a fake romance? Slapping someone else's face onto her sick little savior complex?

Before this nightmare, Sprout would practically vibrate when I walked through the door. He’d do zoomies around my ankles, his tail an absolute blur. Now? He just lay there.

Defeated. Stripped of all his puppy energy since Kayleigh hijacked my life. My chest physically ached.

I wanted to scoop him up, bury my face in his fur, and promise him everything was going to be okay. My mom noticed the shift.

She completely misread the room. "Rosalind, why are you ignoring Sprout lately?" she asked, frowning at the sad little furball. "He's so depressed. You have the day off.

Go walk him." Annoyance flashed across my stolen face. Kayleigh opened her mouth to snap a rejection, but stopped. A calculating gleam replaced the irritation.

She agreed way too fast. I figured out her angle two seconds later. Thorne’s family lived in the same gated community. She wanted to stage a runin.

Sure enough, she stalked the perimeter of his massive estate until Thorne finally stepped outside. She yanked the leash. Hard. She broke into a frantic jog to intercept him.

Sprout yelped. The sudden, violent tug snapped his neck back, but Kayleigh didn't even glance over her shoulder. She skidded to a halt right in his personal space.

Thorne threw a hand up, his jaw clenched tight. "Stop.

Back the hell up." Kayleigh crushed her features into a wounded pout. "Do you really hate me that much?" Thorne pressed his lips together.

Cold, absolute indifference radiated from him. "Keep the dog away.

I'm allergic." A psychotic little thrill shot through my stolen body. "Oh!" Kayleigh beamed, practically vibrating with relief. "So it's the dog you don't like.

Not me!" She dragged Sprout away from the quiet estates, heading straight for the busy fourlane road just outside the gates. Sprout sniffed a patch of grass, completely distracted.

Kayleigh unclipped the carabiner. She dropped the leash. Without making a sound, she darted through a gap in the heavy traffic, planting herself on the opposite shoulder.

Cars whipped past, a blur of metal and speed. She crouched down. She opened my arms wide. "Sprout! Come here, boy! Come!" Sprout’s ears perked up. He heard my voice. He saw my face.

He didn't know the monster hiding behind my eyes. He was terrified of traffic.

I had found him bleeding out on the asphalt back then, a motionless lump of fur in the middle of an intersection. A dark, sticky pool spreading underneath him.

Acid burned the back of my throat every time the memory surfaced. I couldn't leave him there to get flattened into the pavement.

I just wanted to pull him off the road and give him a decent burial. Then I saw his chest twitch. Just a tiny, shallow hitch. His dark eyes flickered.

I scooped him up and practically flew to the vet clinic. The doctor took one look and shook his head. Chapter 4 I begged my parents to pull strings. We got Dr.

Keller, the absolute best in the city, to perform the emergency surgery. I slept on the hard tiles next to his recovery crate for days. I nursed him back from the brink.

I watched that frail, broken little puppy transform into a solid, shinycoated ball of pure energy. Every day after school, he’d be waiting. Tail thumping a frantic rhythm.

He’d do zoomies around my shins, letting out these needy little howls. Like he was scolding me. "Where have you been? I missed you!" He loved me more than anything.

So, even though the roaring traffic terrified him, he paced the opposite shoulder. Whining. Desperate. And for me, he stepped off the curb. Into his worst nightmare.

My throat clamped shut. I tried to scream. Sprout, no! Stay back! Nothing. Not a sound. I was paralyzed inside my own skull.

Kayleigh just watched his little paws tremble on the asphalt. A sick, triumphant smirk twisted my lips. She hijacked my life.

And now she was weaponizing my body to destroy everything I loved. Massive SUVs roared past. Walls of metal blurring by at highway speeds. One hit.

Just one tire, and he’d be gone forever. But Kayleigh kept calling him. Her voice dripping with fake, sugary sweetness. "Sprout! Come here, buddy!

Come to me!" Sprout froze in the center lane. Shaking violently.

A young woman checked the traffic, carefully made her way behind him in the center lane, and scooped Sprout up into her arms. The suffocating pressure in my lungs finally gave way.

The young woman—who I would later know as Heidi—stormed across the street, marching right up to Kayleigh. "Are you his owner?!" Heidi yelled. "He trusts you!

You were calling him into moving traffic! What is wrong with you?! Dogs are family!

Not some cheap accessory you just throw into the street when you get bored!" Kayleigh didn't even flinch.

She snatched Sprout by the scruff, violently ripping him out of Heidi’s arms. "He's my property. I'll do whatever the hell I want. Back off." Sprout let out a sharp, agonizing yelp.

Heidi immediately let go, unwilling to see him hurt. She looked like a broke college grad—faded sneakers, an oversized thrifted jacket. But she couldn't just walk away.

She swallowed hard. "If you don't want him… give him to me. I'll take him. I'll even pay you." Kayleigh’s eyes lit up for a second.

But her ego was too bruised from the public lecture. She sneered. "I'm loaded. I don't need your pocket change.

I'd rather hand him over to Vernon for bait than give him to you." She pulled out her phone, pulling up Vernon's number. Heidi begged. She pleaded. Kayleigh just ignored her.

My blood instantly ran ice cold. Vernon ran a notoriously filthy scrap yard on the edge of town. An open secret for illegal dogfighting.

People knew what happened to the "free to a good home" pets he collected. Kayleigh literally shoved Sprout into Vernon's grimy hands right in front of Heidi.

I could see the dark, rustcolored stains on the concrete behind Vernon's chainlink fence. The discarded collars hanging on the wire.

I thrashed against the confines of my own mind. I clawed at the invisible walls. I needed my hands back. I needed to move