Face-Slapping14 min read
My Sister Took Everything — So I Built a Trap
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"I told you once," I said, "don't call her my sister in front of people."
"I didn't," Frances answered with that thin, soft voice of hers. "You always make things so dramatic, Sylvie."
"Then stop taking everything that isn't nailed down."
She smiled like a child who had just found candy. "But I like shiny things. And I like good stories."
"I liked Dalton," I said.
"You liked him until he became mine," she said, false innocent. "That's different."
The knife in my chest was not poetic. It was small, sharp, and very real.
"Why would you do that?" I asked.
"Do what?" she asked, tilting her head. "Be happy?"
She had done it once, the first time we were kids—stealing a note meant for the boy I liked. She had the face for it then: wide eyes, a small throat that showed when she smiled, the exact tilt of helplessness. She had talked her way out of it, and people had believed her.
"Because you can't let anything belong only to someone else," I said. "Not toys, not dresses, not attention. Not my first love."
Frances laughed, small and high. "You still carry that like a prayer."
"Do you ever think about other people?" I asked.
She blinked as if I had hit her. "Of course. I feel. I care. I get hurt too."
"You hurt people," I said. "You always have."
"Then why are you still talking?" she asked, like a breeze. "If you hate me so much, leave. Go. Make your life."
I didn't leave then.
Years filled in small, slow ways. I learned to place my life inside books and tests, inside long study nights. I changed the shape of myself with quiet work. I wanted a life that did not smell like her perfume, a life that would not collapse because she smiled at a man.
"I'm coming home this weekend," Dalton said on the phone. "Would your family mind meeting me? It feels right."
"Bring a suit," I told him. "Wear something adult."
"Always," he said. "I want them to like me."
"Bring your patience too," I said. "It's probably going to be family chaos."
He laughed. "I'll be on my best behavior."
I hoped for that.
When I arrived, the house smelled like the holidays had never left. Frances sat on the couch in a butter-yellow sweater, hands folded, entire posture arranged to be disarmingly small.
"Hi, Sylvie," she purred.
"Hi," I said, and watched her speak to Dalton like she invented sweetness.
"Dalton is in investment banking," she said. "Oh my God, so impressive."
"Yes," Dalton said politely. "I've been doing it for a while."
She leaned closer to him in a way that belonged on television. Everyone saw and nodded. My father smiled. My mother inclined her head the way someone evaluates a book cover.
"How did you two meet?" my mother asked, eyes bright.
"Sylvie and I worked together," Dalton said. "We met at a conference."
"She saved me coffee once," he added, which was silly and true. He was soft and kind when it didn't matter who watched.
"See?" Frances cooed. "She's so lucky to have someone so smart."
"She's lucky I stayed," I said.
The table felt like glass.
After dinner she was at it—graceful accidents, half-hurt smiles, the kind of look that asked for attention and got it.
"Oops," she murmured, slipping on the polished floor as if the world was an actor's stage. She fell into Dalton's arms.
I watched their faces for two seconds that broadened into a lifetime.
"Are you okay?" Dalton asked, tone threaded with concern.
"I'm fine," she breathed. "I'm so clumsy."
They paused. I saw, in that pause, a tiny betrayal. He looked like he had seen something pretty, then regretted his own pleasure.
"I could help her," he said, and it was the softest thing.
I felt my throat close.
"You two will make each other miserable, if that helps," I said, but no one heard me.
Weeks later, the house spun more tightly. Frances had that ordinary cruelty: claim, retrieve, discard.
"She took my notes," I told my mother once, voice small and brittle. "She read my letters when I was thirteen and told you everything."
"You two were kids," my mother said. She always said it like a balm. "Kids make mistakes."
"She wasn't a child when she did it," I said. "She was aiming."
My mother frowned like she was solving a puzzle. "Sylvie, she meant us to know."
"She meant you to hate me," I said.
"Don't be dramatic," she said, even then. "She loves you."
"You love the idea of loving her."
When Dalton came back to visit, things changed. Frances wore her brightest dress and a practiced, small smile.
"You're sure," I said to Dalton privately outside the house, "this is all real with her?"
He laughed it off at first. "She's likeable."
"Likeable?" I said. "She preys on people she knows will surrender."
He squeezed my hand. "I promise. I would never—"
He lied with kindness.
"You promised," I repeated. "You promised it would always be me."
"I did," he said. "I promise."
"Say it again."
"I promise," he said, and when the word left his mouth it sounded like a receding tide.
In the days that followed, I watched them. I watched Frances make herself little in just the right moments, then bridge the space between them with a laugh. She could tilt her head, bat her lashes, and men would simplify.
"She's different with you," a friend whispered once. "He's never been like that in front of anyone else."
"That's the problem," I said. "She uses her smallness like ammunition."
One night, when the moon was a thin coin, Frances crossed the line.
I found them in her room.
The world turned into a sound. The floor seemed to leave me. She wrapped herself around him like a vine. He looked embarrassed and rapt both at once.
"Excuse me," I said. "What are you doing in my house with my boyfriend?"
"Shh," Frances whispered, all tears and innocence. "Sylvie, please. We love each other. Can't you just—"
"Love? You call this love?"
"Yes," she said simply. "I love Dalton."
"You slept with my boyfriend," I said.
"You were dating," she said. "But that's fragile. I have a right to be happy."
"We'll talk," I told him. "We will talk about how monstrous this is."
Dalton touched my arm once. "Sylvie, I'm sorry. I never meant—"
He did mean it. That was the worst part. He had meant to be dishonest with me and be honest with himself.
I lost something vital that night. My parents asked me to be magnanimous. They asked me to let this be a new chapter.
"Dalton and Frances would like your blessing," my mother said.
"Blessing?" I told her. "She stole him out from under me, and you call that a blessing?"
"It would be cleaner," my father said. "No scandal. No need to make this worse."
"Why is everyone so ready to clean up after her?"
"Because she is always the one we want to believe is innocent," my mother said.
I saw the plan forming then. It was slow as winter ice, a feeling that hardened into a shape.
"Fine," I said finally. "If that's your wish."
They offered me money as consolation—fifty thousand dollars—cold and absurd like a payment for a missing thing. My mother said it with a smile that was part apology, part calculation.
"Take it," she said. "It will make things easier."
I took it and walked out.
They thought the story had ended when I left the house. They were wrong.
"You're not going to ruin your life over her, right?" my best friend asked. "You have so much ahead."
"I do," I said. "Which is exactly why I won't let her ruin it."
The plan started on an evening by myself, with the city lights blurred and a notebook open.
"I cannot bring him back," I wrote. "I cannot return the lost days. But I can make her pay where it counts."
I called a man named Oscar Chandler. I paid him money. He was not my boyfriend; he was a professional.
"Will you be able to play a role?" I asked him.
"Yes," he said. "We stage. We script. We never cross a line into harm."
"Public scandal?" I asked.
"We can publicize. We can create humiliation. We can engineer collapse."
"Do it," I said.
He came as a patient, careful performer. He learned everything about Dalton's mannerisms, about my family's taste, about Frances's favorite coffee. He built a version of Dalton that she would accept.
"You're sure you want this?" he asked me the night before the first act.
"I'm sure," I said. "I want her to feel what she made others feel. She needs to be stripped of the myth she lives in."
Weeks of small tricks followed. Oscar played the part of the loyal suitor in all the right places. He courted Frances with exactly the tone that feeds girls like her: praise for her looks, admiration for her charm, whispered ideas about investment and status and future promise.
She ate it up.
"He's so attentive," she told my mother. "He's a perfect gentleman."
"He seems nice," my mother said. "You deserve someone stable."
He made her feel unique. He made her feel like someone had finally seen her. He made the cage she built look like golden bars.
Then came the bridal shop.
I had never thought I would feel a small, rude joy at watching her get soaked with coffee.
Two women entered like a wave.
"Excuse me," the tall one asked, and did not wait for an answer. "Are you the bride?"
Frances puffed out her chest. "Yes. It's my sister's store day—"
The large cup hit her face in an instant. The sound was the nearest thing to music I had heard in years.
"Get off her!" Frances screamed, hands up, clutching the wet fabric.
The tall woman slapped her hard. "You played her sister. You played with her life. You are not invited."
"Stop!" the store clerk cried. "Please—"
But the two women were merciless, their palms loud and decisive. They tore at her hair. Bystanders gaped. Some recorded. Some stepped back.
"Let go of me!" Frances shrieked, voice cracking.
"Too many of you used to get everything you wanted," the tall woman spat. "Now you will get what you deserve."
They punched and kicked and called names. "Small-tongued, small-souled," they said.
"Shame her," someone said from the other side of the room.
It was a public beating, brutal for its ordinariness. The bridal shop's mirrors became witnesses. The shop clerk finally grabbed her phone and dialed security. The attackers left before security arrived.
When Frances crawled out of the boutique a minute later, her face bruised, her makeup ruined, she was a wreck. She tried to hold herself upright, but the world tilted.
"Are you okay?" a bystander tried to help.
"No!" Frances wailed. "Why is nobody stopping them? They'll go to jail!"
"They did what you did to others," someone murmured. "This is a mirror."
I did not stop it.
I watched and felt a small, cold satisfaction. She had been reduced. She had been touched by consequences.
"The world stopped believing in her pristine act," I told myself. "And that was necessary."
But I knew that public mockery alone was not enough. I wanted a full collapse—the thing that would hurt her most was not pain, but the shredding of her puppet stage: her good name, her safety net, her future.
We fed her vanity and then cut the thread.
At the engagement party—our family's foolish, costly show—the final act played out.
The venue glittered. Flowers veiled the room. My parents sat like kings, anxious and distracted. Frances walked in like a queen.
"Where is our groom?" people asked. "He is late."
"Traffic," my mother explained awkwardly.
We waited. The chatter turned to whispers. My cheeks burned but not with shame.
The doors slid open and the police came in.
"Ms. Sanders," the officer said, voice flat. "You're under investigation for misappropriation of funds. We need you to come with us."
The room froze. Silver china in hands. A child's balloon wobbling. A camera caught the exact moment perfection became ridiculous.
"What's this about?" Frances asked, fragile and stunned.
"There's evidence your company's accounts were tampered with," the officer said. "We've received a complaint. You are suspected of embezzlement."
Faces in the room shifted. Murmurs rose.
"You're making a mistake," my father protested. "This is a misunderstanding."
"We will investigate," the officer replied. "But we have probable cause."
My mother stammered. "But the wedding—"
"It's not our decision," the police said.
For a moment Frances' expression went through a flipbook of reactions: disbelief, indignation, denial, panic.
"You're lying!" she cried. "This is set up!"
"Ms. Sanders, we will need to ask you a few questions at the station," another officer added gently.
People started pulling out phones, streaming, whispering. "Is this real?" someone said.
"Scandal," whispered an aunt. "Can you imagine?"
"Her company? Oh my God." The gossip was like bees.
Frances' face changed again.
"This is—" she began. "Dalton, where are you?"
Nobody answered. Dalton's name echoed in the hall like a coin dropped on stone.
"Dalton's not coming," my mother said faintly.
"Why not?" Frances demanded, tearing.
"Because Dalton left," my father said. "He won't be part of this."
"But—" Frances began, voice thin.
"You will come with us," the officer said, and moved forward.
She fought like a cornered animal. She pleaded to friends. She begged family. She cried saying she'd never done anything wrong.
"Are you serious? She couldn't have!" my cousin shouted.
"Then you will get to tell that to the judge," the officer said.
This scene lasted long enough to be replayed in people's minds many times. It was public and humiliating. It had everything: arrest, tears, disbelief, spectacular downfall—exactly what I wanted and yet never wanted at all.
When they led her away, the room erupted. Phones flashed. Someone clapped once, nervously.
Her eyes found mine through the crowd.
"Why?" she mouthed, the single word a pistol shot.
"You should have thought of that before," I said silently. The watchers around us could not hear the conversation. They only heard the rustle of chairs and the clearing of throats.
Outside, the officers made a formal statement. "She's being taken in for questioning related to alleged diversion of company funds," one said into a net of microphones.
On the curb, several relatives were shouting.
"Shame," an aunt said, voice sharp. "You couldn't keep her safe."
"She always seemed too pretty for work," a neighbor muttered.
"People are watching," another said, with the cruel casualness of spectators.
Frances was crying harder now. "It wasn't me! It wasn't me!" she screamed. "You can't—"
"Ms. Sanders, come," the officer said with an exhausted calm. "Please."
The police walked her to a squad car. She looked at her parents like a child seeing them for perhaps the last time in a normal life.
"Why?" she said again. "Why would anyone do this to me?"
"You did it to others," the woman who had slapped her in the bridal shop said, standing in the crowd, red mark on her cheek. "Now you're getting a taste."
The crowd's reaction was a complicated thing. Some cried. Some gossiped. Some took photos. A little girl in a pink dress watched the scene with confused eyes and clutched her father's hand.
"Is she a bad girl?" the child asked.
"Not every story is simple," her father said, and then softened. "But sometimes people who looked like angels turn out to be something else."
That day the police took her to the station.
I stayed through the swirling currents of whispers until the last relative left. I watched my parents' faces while we walked home like the world had been rearranged under their feet.
"Why didn't you stop this?" my mother asked later, voice small. "You could have said something."
"I did what I had to," I said. "You know she would have kept taking until nothing was left."
"You're heartless," she said finally. "You must have been working with someone."
"There is no kindness in her," I said.
Days turned into weeks. The charges were real. The public beatings, the leafleting and the online comments, and the papers all folded into one thing: Frances was a criminal. She was a villain the town could talk about over dinner.
I waited.
The courtroom was full. Frances stood, as she had in the bridal shop, but now with handcuffs. She kept saying she was innocent.
"She always says that," my mother told a friend. "She is always the victim."
"Maybe she is," a neighbor muttered. "But then again..."
The judge's gavel came like an end. The stories were long. The final verdict was six years.
I think a lot of people expected more screaming, more breakdowns, more swaggering claims of innocence. Instead Frances walked out a stunned shell.
"You're cruel," she said to me in the visiting room later, voice thin like thread. "You set all of this up."
"I did what you made me learn to do," I answered. "You taught me the rules. You taught me how to lose without fighting back. I learned them and used them."
She looked at me with hatred so bright it hurt. "You should rot with me."
I didn't smile. I couldn't. "I stopped because you destroyed the only boy who ever made me feel seen."
She spat. "He was nothing but a boy."
"He was everything," I said. "He's gone."
She looked away.
Her punishment was public—beaten in a bridal shop, shamed on the street, exposed by leaflets and online posts, then arrested at her own engagement, and finally sentenced. It was long enough and varied: humiliation, violence, exposure, legal consequence. People watched the change in her eyes, the collapse from haughty to pleading to blank. The crowd moved from shock to indignation to voyeuristic glee. They took phones, they whispered, they clapped once, they threw away sympathy like trash.
And still, sometimes, in the dark between sleep and wakefulness, I dreamed of another punishment—one I had wanted but could not give. I dreamed of making her feel not just the loss of freedom but the loss of memory, of warmth, of possibility.
In the end, the sentence folded her life in on itself. But it did not bring back Dashiell Davis.
I went to his grave. It rained in a soft, steady way. I placed flowers and talked to a stone.
"I did it," I told him. "I gave her what she deserved. But I couldn't give you back your life."
For a long time I kept thinking the revenge would feel like the end of something heavy. It was heavy, yes, but not the neat finishing I had imagined. There were quiet rooms where guilt walked like a guest and didn't leave. There were nights I woke up hearing his voice, "Sylvie, you must live."
"I am trying," I told his stone.
And there were other, smaller things: my friends who kept their distance, my parents' faces when they learned I had engineered a trap, the occasional scolding from people who saw the revenge as cruel.
"You were justice," Oscar said once, weeks after the arrest. "Sometimes justice looks like cruelty."
"Do you believe that?" I asked.
"I believe people will say many things to justify the hurt they feel," he said. "You wanted to end the cycle."
"Did you know you were part of a cycle?" I asked.
He shrugged. "I did my part. You wanted an outcome."
"Do you ever regret it?"
"No," he said. "My job is to perform. It's men like you who write the stories."
I looked at him like I had looked at Dashiell once: searching for some depth I could trust. There was none.
Months later Frances's name became a case study in small-town catastrophe. Some people argued she had been taught by a cruel, indifferent family to take everything; others argued she was simply greedy. Her parents tried to hold onto reputation like someone trying to clutch at a stone in a river.
"She'll be out in six years," my father said angrily one night, hands trembling. "And we'll have to face her."
"Then let her come," I said. "Let her have the years she wanted."
My mother cried herself to sleep sometimes. She would say, "I never wanted it to be like this."
"Then maybe you should have seen it sooner," I said.
In the end, the war between sisters was a strange, terrible thing. I did what I thought necessary to stop someone who had never learned shame. I made sure she had consequences. I did not make her death, or ruin her life entirely in the way I sometimes fantasized. She got six years, which is time enough to shrink a spirit.
When I stood again at Dashiell's grave, I laid the last of my plans in the soil, not for vengeance but for myself.
"I won't let you haunt me," I said. "I will use what we have to go farther."
I took a plane and I left. I saved money and worked. The city was wide and anonymous. I studied. I found small joys that were not about taking or losing.
I still told myself that I had performed a sort of justice. I still allowed myself that, but no longer as the whole of who I was. I let that hatred be a single room I visited sometimes, not the house in which I lived.
A friend asked, "Would you do it again?"
"I don't know," I said. "I am not sure I can live with the kind of person I became there."
"Then what now?" she asked.
"Now I work," I said. "Now I try to make things better in ways that don't break us."
I thought about Frances sometimes. She never admitted guilt. When we had that one visiting-room conversation she said, "I was always the one you loved to hate."
"No," I said. "You were the one who taught me to hate."
She laughed with a sound like cracking paper. "Then go on. Learn to live. Or keep being bitter. Either way, it's your life."
I left it like that.
At the end of the day the revenge had been complete: public beatings, public humiliation, arrest in front of every guest, a trial that people discussed for months, and a prison sentence that bared her future.
People cheered and judged and then moved on. My life was quieter for it, and sometimes quieter is enough.
When I spoke at Dashiell's grave for the final time I said, "I did my part. You can rest."
Then I left, and I tried, imperfectly, to live.
The End
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