Chapter 1

My mother, Debra, gripped the steering wheel, her knuckles white. She stared at the fancy steakhouse, a place we never went to.

"Gabrielle, this is it. This is your golden ticket."

She turned to me, her eyes sharp.

"I worked hard to get you this meeting with Ethan Lester. His family is old money, real power. Don't you dare mess this up."

I just nodded, my hands cold in my lap.

"And whatever you do," she added, her voice dropping low, "do not let Molly anywhere near this. You understand me? She'll ruin it."

I understood better than she could ever imagine. I remembered it all. The torn clothes, the fake bruises, the rage in her lover's eyes. I remembered the heavy impact, the world going dark.

And then waking up here, in this car, just moments before it all began.

"I understand, Mom," I said, my voice steady.

Molly, my best friend. My mother' s secret daughter. The two of them, along with Molly' s father, had orchestrated my death. They murdered me and took everything my father left me.

In my last life, when my mother warned me about Molly, I was confused. I defended her. I told my mother she was being unfair.

That loyalty got me killed.

After I died, my mother signed a plea deal that let Molly' s father get a light sentence. Then she married him. Molly, her real daughter, legally inherited all my properties. They got everything they wanted.

But I was back. And this time, things would be different.

I got out of the car and walked towards the steakhouse entrance. My heart was pounding, not with nerves, but with cold, hard resolve. I was walking back into the scene of the crime, the moment before my life was destroyed.

This time, I wasn't the victim. I was the hunter.