Rising From The Grave As A Queen

I was tracing the gold paint on my own tombstone when a hand tapped me on the shoulder.

It was Clayton.

The same man who, five years ago, had left me bleeding out in a ditch because he didn't want to be late for my sister's engagement party.

"Die quietly, Ivy," he had said over the phone before hanging up.

Now, standing over my grave, he dropped his cheap plastic flowers in shock.

"Ivy? You're... we buried you."

They hadn't buried me.

They had buried an empty box to save face, mourning a "troubled" daughter they had actually discarded like broken trash the moment I became a liability.

Clayton's shock quickly turned to that familiar, arrogant anger.

He accused me of faking my death for attention.

He told me I was sick for putting the family through such pain.

He even reached out to grab my arm, intending to drag me back to my father to apologize.

"You're coming with me," he spat. "You owe us an explanation."

But he made a fatal mistake.

He thought he was talking to Ivy Dillard, the soft girl who cried when she skinned her knees.

He didn't notice the town car waiting at the curb, or the man stepping out of it.

Before Clayton's fingers could graze my coat, a hand made of steel caught his wrist.

Collin Richardson, the most feared Capo in Chicago, stepped between us.

"Touch my wife again," Collin whispered, his voice promising violence. "And you lose the hand."

I smiled at the terror draining the color from Clayton's face.

I didn't come back from the dead to explain myself.

I came back to bury them.

Chapter 1

Ivy Richardson POV

I was tracing the cold letters of the inscription on my own tombstone when a hand hesitated, then tapped me on the shoulder.

The man attached to it was the same one who had left me to bleed out in a ditch five years ago.

The marble was freezing under my gloved fingertips.

It was a pristine slab of gray stone, far more expensive than anything my father had ever wasted on me while I was still breathing.

Here Lies Ivy Dillard.

Beloved Daughter.

Cherished Sister.

The lies were carved deep, filled with gold paint that mocked me as it glinted in the afternoon sun.

It was almost funny.

They had buried an empty casket to save face, mourning a girl they had discarded like a broken toy the moment she became a liability.

I adjusted the oversized frames of my sunglasses.

My reflection in the polished stone showed a woman they wouldn't recognize.

Ivy Dillard was a soft, frantic girl who cried when she skinned her knees.

Ivy Richardson-the woman staring back at me-was forged in the fires of the Chicago Outfit. She was married to a man whose name made grown men cross the street, and she was dressed in a coat that cost more than this entire plot of land.

"Excuse me."

The voice was familiar.

It scraped against my spine like a rusted knife.

I didn't turn around immediately. I let the silence stretch, heavy and suffocating.

I took a breath, smelling the damp earth mixed with the cloying scent of cheap cologne.

Old Spice and desperation.

When I finally turned, Clayton Greene dropped the flowers he was holding.

The bouquet of plastic lilies hit the grass with a pathetic rustle.

His face went slack.

He looked exactly the same as the night he left me in the wreckage. Handsome in a hollow, store-bought way.

His jaw was square, his hair gelled into submission, but his eyes were weak.

"Ivy?"

He whispered the name like he was seeing a ghost.

His skin turned the color of ash. "You're... you're dead."

I stepped closer, my heels sinking slightly into the soft turf of my own grave.

I didn't flinch. I didn't cry.

My heart beat with the slow, steady rhythm that Collin had taught me to master.

"Ivy Dillard is dead," I said, my voice smooth and devoid of the tremor that used to define me.

I gestured to the stone. "It says so right there."

Clayton took a stumbling step back.

He looked from the grave to me, his brain failing to bridge the gap between the memory of the bloody girl he abandoned and the immaculate woman standing before him.

"How?" He choked on the word. "We buried you."

"Correction," I said, tilting my head sharply. "You buried a box of rocks and a lie."

I looked down at the plastic flowers at his feet.

They were dusty. He had bought them at a gas station. Even in death, I wasn't worth real petals to him.

"You look like you've seen a ghost, Clayton," I said, brushing a speck of nonexistent dust from my lapel.

"But ghosts don't wear Valentino."