Chapter 1

My name is Gabrielle Fuller, and this is the second time I' m living this day.

The first time, I died.

Molly Chavez, the girl who "saved" me from a mugging a week ago, murdered me. She did it with my fiancé, Caleb Scott.

They staged it to look like a suicide, a tragic end for a fallen heiress.

Now, I' m back.

I woke up this morning in my Pacific Heights condo, the San Francisco fog thick outside my window, and the memory of their hands on me, the cold shock of betrayal, was so real it made me sick.

I checked my phone. The date was the same. A week after Molly became my hero, my little sister figure.

A week before they started the slow, systematic destruction of my life.

I spent my first life thanking her, showering her with gifts, bringing her into my world. I saw a brilliant, disadvantaged girl I could help.

She saw a prize to be taken.

Caleb saw an obstacle to be removed.

Today, in my first life, was the day Molly first asked for a favor. A "small" one. She wanted an internship at Caleb's venture capital firm. I, of course, made it happen. I put her right in the front office, a position that gave her direct access to Caleb and the heart of my world.

It was the first nail in my coffin.

This time, when my phone buzzes with her name, I let the ice in my veins guide me.

"Gabby! I have the most amazing, craziest idea," her voice is a syrupy mix of feigned humility and raw ambition.

I know what' s coming.

"You know how much I admire Caleb," she says, "And I was thinking, maybe, just maybe, you could talk to him? About an internship? I would do anything, absolutely anything, to learn from him."

I let a beat of silence hang in the air, making her squirm.

"An internship," I repeat, my voice carefully neutral. "That' s a great idea, Molly. I think it' s important to learn a business from the ground up, to really understand how everything works."

"Exactly!" she squeals, thinking I' m on her side. "I'm a fast learner, Gabby. You know that."

"I do," I say, the words tasting like poison. "I'll make a call."

I hang up.

I don' t call Caleb. I call the head of HR at his firm, a woman who owes my family a favor from a decade ago. I tell her I have a special project, a young woman I' m mentoring who needs to learn the ropes.

Not in the front office.

Not near the dealmakers.

I arrange for Molly Chavez, the ambitious Stanford scholar, to be an intern assistant.

In the building' s facility management office.

In the basement.