They Threatened Me, I Fought Back

Hera's POV: My mom was killed in a car crash. I was ten years old back then. I didn't find out until later that the crash wasn't an accident. Someone had tampered with the brakes. The person who did it? My own father. My mom went to her grave never knowing her husband had been cheating on her with another woman for ages. Less than three months after she passed, he married that woman, and doted on their daughter like she was his own little princess. He stole my mom's final composition, and claimed it was his other daughter's original work. Fifteen years later, I sat on the judging panel of an international piano competition. The so-called "prodigy girl" on stage was playing my mom's unreleased final work right then. I slammed the stop button. "This piece isn't yours." The microphone boomed my voice out to every single person in the auditorium. "I refuse to give you a score." The whole place erupted. Camera shutters clattered like a torrential rainstorm. Katrina Guillermo's face drained of all color in an instant, her lips trembling as she stared down at Liam Guillermo in the audience. I watched Liam's face twitch. But he didn't blow up right there in public. He just glared daggers at me, a cold, vicious glint burning in his eyes. The competition was put on hold. I left the judges' table and headed for the backstage lounge. I hadn't even finished pulling the door shut when someone shoved it hard from the other side. Katrina stood in the doorway, her eyes red and puffy, her chest heaving violently. "What gives you the right, Hera?" Her voice was shrill and sharp, nothing like the poised, elegant "prodigy girl" she'd pretended to be on stage. "What gives you the right to cut me off? Do you have any idea how long I've been preparing for this?" I stayed seated in my chair, not even bothering to stand up. "I don't care how long you practiced for. That piece isn't yours, so I'm not scoring it." "Oh, so it's yours then? Is that what you're saying?" She let out a bitter laugh, tears spilling down her cheeks. "I wrote this myself! My dad guided me through every step of it! Who even are you, to say it's not mine?" I lifted my head to look at her. She had no clue who the real composer of this piece was. She had no clue her father had stolen this piece from a dead woman. Most of all, she had no clue that I was Liam's first daughter. "I say it's not yours, so it's not." My voice stayed flat and even. "The composition timeline, structural logic, and harmonic progression of this piece don't match your usual style at all. Any professional judge would hear that in a second." "Bullshit!" she all but screamed, "You're just jealous of me! You just want to grab clout!" She stormed out, slamming the door so hard the walls shook, the hinges screaming. I closed my eyes. My hands were shaking. It wasn't fear. It was rage. Fifteen whole years had passed. Mom had died in that so-called "accident." No one had questioned it. No one knew the brakes had been deliberately tampered with. But I'd dug up the truth. It had taken me ten whole years, piecing every tiny clue together bit by bit. The old mechanic who'd owned the repair shop back then was still alive. He clearly remembered someone had come in that day to do "special maintenance" on the car. The description he gave matched the old photos of a young Liam perfectly, down to the last detail. Mom never knew a thing, not even when she took her last breath. She'd had no idea her husband had been cheating on her while she was pregnant with me. She'd had no clue that other woman came from a wealthy family that could catapult Liam straight to the top of the social ladder overnight. All she did every day was practice piano, write new scores, and teach me to play. She was giddy with excitement, counting down the days to that career-making concert that was supposed to change our lives for good. She got in that car, and never came home. My phone screen lit up with a ding. It was a news alert. Katrina's studio issued an official statement, vehemently condemning the judge for 'maliciously disrupting the competition.' The comment section already had over ten thousand replies. A: [Who even is this judge? Just clout-chasing, right?] B: [Poor Katrina, she’s being totally bullied here] C: [Boycott this judge!] I turned off my phone. I knew this was only just getting started.