Part 1: The Daughter They Always Blamed

“You’ve got nothing going for you anyway. Just say you were the one driving.”

Those were the first words I heard when my father grabbed my shoulders beside my damaged pickup truck. My name is Sofia Medina, and for as long as I could remember, my family had expected me to clean up every mess my younger brother created. That night, my truck sat half on the curb with its front end crushed, while Rafael stood nearby looking irritated rather than guilty.

My parents acted as though the arriving police officers were the biggest problem we faced. My mother begged us to settle everything before anyone showed up, but in our family, “settling it” had always meant protecting Rafael while I accepted the consequences. That had been the pattern since we were children, and no one ever questioned it.

Rafael had always been the favored son, the confident one who appeared in every family celebration as though the world naturally revolved around him. I was the disappointing daughter who left home at twenty-one and supposedly ended up working “somewhere with the police,” because no one in my family had ever bothered to learn what I actually accomplished.

I never corrected them.

I never told them I was the Chief of Police.

Not because I was ashamed of my career, but because I eventually accepted that my family had no real interest in knowing who I had become. They only cared about what I could do for them whenever something went wrong.

“Rafael took my truck without asking.”

He laughed as though I had made an unreasonable accusation.

“Took it?”

“I borrowed it for an hour.”

“You took it after drinking.”

Rafael straightened his expensive leather jacket and smirked.

“Watch your mouth.”