Chapter 1

My eyes snapped open.

I was small.

Five years old.

My father, Alexander Hamilton III, held me. His arms were strong around my tiny body.

His face, usually so powerful, looked tired. Worried.

"Alright, Ava," he said, his voice heavy. "If it makes you happy. I'll marry her."

The words hit me.

Marry her.

Chloe Raine. My art tutor. My future stepmother.

My murderer.

In my last life, those same words from my father sealed my fate.

I had screamed and cried for him to marry Chloe. I wanted a mommy.

Chloe had played the part so well, showering me with fake love.

She used me, a five-year-old, to get to my father, to his wealth, to the Hamilton name.

And years later, when she was pregnant with her own child, she killed me.

Peanuts. A severe allergy.

Then a staged kidnapping, a car trunk, her voice cold as she planned to dump my body.

I remembered the darkness. The fear. The betrayal.

Now, I was back.

Reborn at this exact moment.

My five-year-old self sobbed in my father' s arms. But inside, a cold, adult rage simmered.

This time, things would be different.

Chloe stood a few feet away, a triumphant, barely hidden smirk on her beautiful face.

She thought she had won.

My father set me down. He looked at Chloe, his eyes like ice.

"You will marry me," he said, his voice flat. "A private civil ceremony. No announcement. No public recognition."

Chloe' s smirk wavered.

"Your entire existence in this house," Alexander continued, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper, "depends on Ava. On her happiness. On her whim. If she is ever, for any reason, unhappy with you, you will be gone. With nothing."

Chloe' s face paled.

She opened her mouth to speak, maybe to try her sweet, manipulative tone.

"Mr. Peterson," my father said, not looking away from Chloe.

The ever-present, loyal Hamilton butler stepped forward. He was a tall, stern man.

Chloe tried to compose herself, to assert some new, imagined authority. "Alexander, I just think-"

Mr. Peterson' s hand shot out.

He didn't slap her. He gripped her arm, hard.

Chloe gasped, her eyes wide with shock and pain.

"You will address Mr. Hamilton as 'Mr. Hamilton'," Peterson said, his voice devoid of emotion. "You will speak when spoken to. Your role here is at the pleasure of Miss Ava."

He released her arm. Chloe cradled it, her eyes darting between my father and the butler.

The rules were clear.

I looked at Chloe, my small face streaked with tears from my earlier, genuine tantrum.

But my eyes were cold.

I would make her pay for what she did to me.

For every moment of fear, for every bit of pain.

This time, I held the power.

My father doted on me. My grandmother, Eleanor, adored me and already despised Chloe.

They would be my weapons.

Chloe Raine had wanted into the Hamilton family.

I would make her regret that wish for the rest of her miserable life.