Chapter 2

The backlash was swift, brutal.

Thorne Consolidated, or rather, Isabelle Hayes, moved with practiced ease.

Within hours, distorted versions of my "unstable" refusal hit the gossip sites.

"Elara Vance, Heiress to Mythical Luck, Melts Down."

"Vance Family Fortune: Clever Con or Old Wives' Tale?"

My temporary apartment building, a modest place I'd secured after my rebirth, was vandalized overnight. "FRAUD" and "GOLD DIGGER" screamed in red paint across the brick.

The online shaming campaign was relentless. Memes, vicious comments, doctored photos.

I was ostracized. Old acquaintances crossed the street to avoid me.

Julian and Izzy, I imagined, watched it all with grim satisfaction. Elara Vance, put in her place.

Victoria Thorne, however, was more pragmatic. Julian's 30th birthday was approaching in this new life, just as it had in the last. She still wanted me accessible.

A week later, a summons arrived. Not an offer, but a directive.

I was assigned a "temporary position" at a forgotten Thorne subsidiary, "Archival Solutions," a dusty, low-visibility department handling old company records. Demeaning, but it kept me on their leash.

Isabelle made sure my time there was hell.

She'd assign me impossible tasks, projects designed for public failure. She spread humiliating rumors – that I was desperate, that I was stalking Julian.

The culmination of her petty cruelties came at a small company gathering, meant to celebrate some minor Thorne achievement.

I was tasked with clearing discarded food trays from a charity event held earlier – food deemed "not good enough" for the actual guests.

As I carried a heavy tray towards the service exit, Izzy appeared, a dazzling smile on her face.

"Oh, Elara, darling," she cooed, then "accidentally" bumped my arm.

The tray clattered, sending stale canapés and wilted salads spilling all over my cheap blouse and skirt.

Laughter rippled through the room.

Izzy looked down at the mess, then at me, her eyes sparkling with malice.

"Oops! So clumsy of me. But then again," she added, her voice carrying, "some things are just meant for the trash, aren't they?"

A red haze filled my vision. I lunged, not thinking, just reacting to the raw humiliation.

Before I could reach her, Izzy let out a theatrical gasp, stumbled backwards, and clutched her stomach.

"Oh! My baby!" she cried, her eyes wide with fake terror, glancing towards the doorway where Julian had just appeared. "Julian, she attacked me! I think... I think I might be..."

She trailed off, hinting at a delicate condition, a phantom pregnancy, endangered by my "aggression."

Julian's face was a mask of fury.

He didn't ask questions. He didn't wait for an explanation.

He saw Izzy, his perfect, victimized love, and me, the "unstable" aggressor.

"You bitch," he snarled, his voice low and dangerous. He grabbed my arm, his fingers digging in like talons. "You dare touch her?"

I tried to speak, to deny it, but his rage was a wall.

"She's pregnant, Elara! With my child! And you try to harm her?"

He dragged me from the room, Izzy's crocodile tears following us.

His punishment was swift and cruel, designed with a personal touch.

He ordered me confined to a sealed-off, derelict wing of the old Thorne-owned Blackwood Sanatorium. A place long abandoned, rumored to be haunted, definitely unsafe. Minimal contact, basic rations.

"Let's see how your 'luck' holds up in there, Elara," he spat, his eyes filled with a cold fire. "Maybe some isolation will break that spirit of yours."

The heavy oak door slammed shut behind me, the sound of bolts sliding into place echoing in the dusty corridor.

I was terrified. The sanatorium, with its decaying walls and chilling history, triggered memories of my first death – the fear of decay, of isolation, of being abandoned to perish.

This was his intent. To break me.

Darkness pressed in. The air was thick with the smell of mold and despair.

I sank to the floor, a single tear tracing a path through the grime on my cheek. He thought he was punishing me. He had no idea he was merely stoking the fires of my resolve.