Chapter 1

I woke up screaming.

The smell of lilies, cloying and sweet, filled my nostrils, the same scent from the funeral home.

Mom and Dad were beside me, their faces pale, eyes wide with the same terror I felt.

We remembered.

Everything.

Jessica.

My older sister, her eyes bright with a chilling mania, a syringe in her hand.

Her obsession with those trashy "dark romance" novels, the ones where the psycho billionaire "tests" the heroine.

Her fixation on Damian Blackwood, the tech mogul whose face was plastered everywhere.

She wanted his life, his money.

She thought she was a heroine.

In our first life, it started with a drone.

A custom, expensive drone of Blackwood's, at a tech expo.

Jessica, trying to stage a "meet-cute" from her favorite book, "accidentally" damaged it.

Mom and Dad, always enabling her, always sacrificing, bankrupted themselves to pay for it.

It didn't stop there.

Stalking.

Attempting to drug him.

And when her fantasy shattered, when Blackwood had her thrown out like trash, she didn't blame him.

She blamed us.

For not supporting her "destiny."

For being "obstacles."

The poison was swift.

We died together, a family destroyed by her delusion.

Now, we were back.

Same small apartment, same life, but with the horrific memories seared into our brains.

The phone rang.

Mom answered, her hand trembling.

"Hello?"

Her face went white.

"It's Jessica," she whispered, phone pressed to her ear. "She's at the tech expo. She... she just damaged Damian Blackwood's drone."

It was happening again.

Exactly like before.

Dad snatched the phone.

"Jessica, listen to me. We are not paying for anything. You understand? You are on your own."

He hung up.

The three of us looked at each other.

The trauma was fresh, the fear was real.

But this time, something else was there.

Resolve.

"This time," I said, my voice hoarse, "she faces the music. Alone."

Mom nodded, tears streaming down her face, but her eyes were hard.

"No more. We won't let her destroy us again."

This wasn't just a second chance for us to live.

It was a chance for Jessica to face the real world, the one outside her twisted fantasies.