Chapter 1

I am Sarah Vance, and for the past five years, I was the acting head of Vance Construction, the firm my mother built from the ground up, a legacy I was sworn to protect. I held the weight of my family's name on my shoulders, a responsibility I never once took lightly. I poured my life into it, into honoring her memory, into making sure the Vance name meant something. It meant integrity. It meant quality. It meant family.

That was my first life.

The life that ended in a sterile hospital room, the smell of antiseptic a permanent scar in my memory. I remember the rain lashing against the window, a storm that mirrored the one raging inside me. My company was gone, dismantled piece by piece. My home, my mother' s home, was sold. My inheritance, the future I had secured for my unborn child, was gambled away and lost.

All of it was taken by the man I married, Mark.

I had saved him. When his own ventures collapsed under the weight of a shady real estate deal, I was the one who pulled him from the wreckage. I used my own funds, my company's resources, to clear his name and his debt. He was so grateful. He got down on one knee, a diamond ring in his hand, and promised me the world. I believed him.

After we married, I invested everything in him. I used my expertise, my connections, my family's capital, to help him climb the ladder of the city's developers. And he climbed, higher and higher, all on my back.

The betrayal came when I was at my most vulnerable. Six months pregnant, exhausted but happy, I trusted him completely. That was my mistake. He stole my designs, the innovative blueprints that were supposed to be the future of Vance Construction, and sold them to our biggest rival.

I confronted him, clutching the proof in my hands, my heart hammering against my ribs. He didn't even have the decency to look ashamed. He was standing next to her, Emily, the woman from the rival firm. He had his arm around her.

"Even if Emily is ruthless, she loves me and would never betray me!" he sneered, his face a mask of contempt. The words hit me harder than a physical blow.

"You're just a pawn, Sarah," he continued, his voice dripping with venom. "Bound by our family's contract. A tool. If it weren't for avenging what your family did to Emily's years ago, I wouldn't have even bothered with you! I could have become a top developer without you!"

He unraveled everything after that. He used the assets from my firm to fund Emily's projects. He sold off the very foundation of my child's future without a second thought. The hatred I felt in that moment was a living thing, a fire that consumed every last ounce of love I ever had for him. It was the last thing I felt before the world went dark.

And then, I woke up.

Not in the hospital, but in my own bed, in the master suite of the Vance family estate. Sunlight streamed through the window, warm on my face. My hand flew to my stomach. It was flat. There was no baby. No pain.

I looked at the digital clock on the nightstand. The date was two years ago. The exact day Mark brought Emily home for the first time.

I heard voices downstairs. His voice, and a woman's laugh. I walked to the top of the grand staircase, my hand gripping the polished wood railing. There they were. Mark, looking younger, more arrogant. And next to him, Emily, her eyes scanning our home with a predatory gleam.

Mark looked up and saw me. He shielded Emily slightly, a protective gesture that was so familiar it made my stomach churn. His eyes met mine, and in that split second, I saw it. It wasn't just surprise. It was suspicion. It was a guarded disdain that held a flicker of shared memory.

He knew. He had come back, too.

A slow smile spread across my face, a genuine, cold smile that didn't reach my eyes. My grandfather, the patriarch of our family, stood near the fireplace, his expression a mixture of confusion and disapproval.

I walked down the stairs, my steps even and confident. I stopped in front of them all and nodded towards my grandfather.

"Grandfather," I said, my voice clear and steady. "Since Mark likes this woman so much, let's welcome her into the family."

Mark's eyes widened in shock. He had expected tears, accusations, a screaming match. He had not expected this. He didn't know that my hatred had been reborn with me, sharpened to a razor's edge.

And he certainly didn't know what I knew about Emily. He saw her as his partner in crime, his key to avenging some imagined slight. I saw her for what she was: a corporate raider, a parasite with insatiable greed.

He had just welcomed a viper into his own pocket. And I knew, with absolute certainty, that she would drain him of every last resource he had. It would take her less than ten days.