I Played the Good Daughter in Riverton for Ten Years—Just to Send My Stepmother to Hell

Back then, my name was Emma Carter, and I lived in Willow Creek in the Pacific Northwest.
My dad brought home a woman who looked as gentle as a saint—my stepmother, Melissa Hart. She smiled, called me “kiddo,” and then shoved me off a cliff.

They stole my name. Rewrote my life. Forced me to become a “clean, obedient daughter” in Riverton—quiet, polished, and harmless.
They thought I’d forgotten.

Then, ten years later, I walked into Kingston University with a new face and a new file—back onto the brightest stage they ever built for themselves.

I don’t cry. I don’t scream. I do only three things:

Make them love me;

Make them trust me;

And at the moment they’re most triumphant… press the button that brings it all down.

Chapter 1

Melissa Hart had been beating me for eight years. Dad was practically waiting for me to snap and take her out.

Funny thing was, Coco crushed my hand the day before the SAT.

Anyone would go crazy, right?

But I didn’t.

I wanted to stay clear-headed, awake enough to watch every one of them get what they deserved.

I was ten when I found out I actually had a dad.

Before that, Grace always soothed me with the same line, your dad’s busy, when he has time he’ll come back for us.

I’d sit there doing homework, thinking, he’s dead. She’s just saying that so I won’t ask again.

Turns out I did have a dad.

Not only was he alive, he was doing just fine.

He rolled back into Willow Creek in a shiny little car, acting like the hometown hero.

When he showed up, Grace was so excited she practically shoved me forward.

"Emmy, go on. Say hi to Dad."

He looked me up and down, the way you’d look at a rat in a gutter.

"Grace Miller, is she even mine? You were raped by Tyler Kane."

Grace’s hand clamped around mine so tight it hurt. Her whole body shook like she might come apart.

She cried so hard she almost fainted, trembling, trying to speak, and nothing came out.

That was the second time I’d ever heard the word raped.

The first time was three summers earlier, when I was seven.

I was inside doing homework when I heard Grace screaming outside.

"Please, please, just let me go."

"I can’t live like this. Tyler Kane, you’re going to drive me to my grave."

I grabbed the scissors I kept under my pillow and ran.

Grace was pinned to the ground, a man yanking at her clothes. She couldn’t get free at all.

I drove the scissors into his thigh.

I knew him, Tyler Kane, Willow Creek’s favorite lowlife.

Blood soaked through his jeans where I’d stabbed him.

Grace scrambled up in that split second and pulled me close, shaking all over.

I held the scissors with both hands and stared him down.

"Come near us again and I’ll stab you for real."

Tyler clutched his leg and started cursing.

"Grace Miller, if I can do it once, I can do it twice."

He still ran, Grandma was getting off her shift soon, and if Grandma caught him, he’d be in for it.

Back then, it was Grandma’s toughness that kept Grace from getting hurt even worse.

In Willow Creek, any woman with a pretty face was a target the way honey draws flies.

I just never thought the second time I’d hear that word, it would come out of Dad’s mouth.

Grandma was the one who got him back. Grandma was dying.

She’d managed to track down his number and begged Chief Thompson to make the call.

Right up to her last breath, Grandma cried.

"You can’t do this to Grace and Emmy. You have to take them with you."

"If it weren’t for Grace, how did you think you got to college? How did you think you made it to Riverton?"

Grandma didn’t even close her eyes when she died, because Dad never answered her.

After Grandma was buried, Dad left again.

Grace held me and cried like she was trying to pour out every last tear she had.

"Grace, don’t cry. I’ll stay with you. When I’m grown, I’ll make money and take care of you."

I wrapped my arms around her, wishing Dad really was dead.

That only made her cry harder.

"Emmy, I don’t have anything to hope for in this life. But you do. You have to get out. If you don’t leave, you won’t survive."

In Willow Creek, girls dropped out at thirteen or fourteen, stayed home, got married, or went off to do whatever work they could find.

Grace never let me touch chores. All she cared about was my grades.

That day, she stuffed every dollar we had into my backpack.

The next morning she walked me to Chief Thompson’s place. His son was working out of town.

She wanted his son to take me to Riverton, to find Dad.

"Emmy, if you want a future, you have to go to your dad."

Her eyes were swollen from crying. She kept turning back, again and again, like she couldn’t make herself leave me.

Chief Thompson felt something was off and told me to come back with him, just to check.

I followed him home. The moment he pushed the door open, I saw Grace.

She was hanging from the ceiling beam.

The rope was thick hemp, the kind we used to haul buckets from the well.

My head went numb, like my whole mind had gone dead quiet.

She was wearing a bright red dress.

The one she’d worn on her wedding night with Dad.

They’d been broke back then. There wasn’t even a reception.

She’d cooked a few big dishes at home, and that was their wedding.

Chief Thompson let out a long breath.

"Kiddo, your mom had it hard her whole life. Don’t blame her."

How could I blame her?

All I could hate was the man I was supposed to call Dad.

Grace waited ten years. She held on for ten years.

And in the end, she got nothing.

She’d been working since she was thirteen, sending money so he could study.

At eighteen she bought one new dress and called it marriage.

After Dad left for school in Riverton, he vanished.

This was his first time back in ten years.

And the moment he came back, he drove her straight to the edge.

She was a soft woman, but she was stubborn in her own way.

She could grind through any kind of hardship to raise me, and still be shattered by one sentence that questioned her.

I’d read somewhere that poverty doesn’t just hurt, it never ends.

That’s why I had to go to Riverton.

I kept vigil for Grace for seven days. Then I put on my backpack and left.

I told myself even if Dad was a monster, somewhere in him there had to be something human.

I was wrong.

For me, going to Riverton wasn’t a fresh start.

It was like stepping straight into a grease fire.

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