Chapter 2

The sounds from downstairs were a perfect echo of the past. Liam's drug-fueled shouts, Sarah's carefully-timed, theatrical cries for help. It was all happening again.

I scrambled out of bed, my heart hammering against my ribs. I looked at my hands. They were smooth, unburned. I touched my throat. There were no scars, no lingering taste of hot metal.

It was real. I was back.

A wave of memories crashed over me, so vivid they left me breathless.

I remembered the shame in my father' s eyes when he believed Sarah' s lies. He loved me, but his pride and his rigid code of honor were weapons Sarah had used against him, against me.

"Ava, for the family's reputation, this is the only way," he had said, his voice heavy as he signed the papers that made Liam my fiancé and the future head of the Miller fortune.

I remembered the wedding. Not a single guest smiled. I walked down the aisle like a prisoner walking to her execution. Liam stood at the altar, his eyes empty, already planning the fire that would consume us all.

I remembered the locket. The way he forced it down my throat, piece by piece, a sacrament to his twisted love for Sarah.

The humiliation. The pain. The fire.

Never again.

A sharp knock on my door pulled me from the horrifying trance.

"Ava? Are you in there? Something terrible is happening downstairs!"

Sophia Davis. The housekeeper's daughter. My best friend. My betrayer.

In my last life, she was the one who "comforted" me after the incident. She held my hand and told me everything would be okay, all while spreading rumors that I was a desperate, promiscuous girl who threw herself at her stepbrother.

"Ava, please open up!" she called, her voice thick with fake concern. "Your stepmom is crying, and Liam is going crazy! You have to come down and help!"

Help? She wanted me to walk right back into the same trap. To be the one discovered in the room with a crazed Liam, to be the one to take the fall.

I remembered a conversation I'd overheard just days before the fire in my past life. Sophia, talking to her mother in the kitchen, her voice dripping with envy.

"Can you believe it? That idiot Ava is marrying Liam. She gets everything, and for what? For being John Miller' s daughter. It' s not fair. I wish something bad would just happen to her already."

Her "friendship" was a lie, a long-con fueled by jealousy.

I walked to the door and unlocked it. Sophia stood there, her face a perfect mask of worry.

"Oh, Ava, thank god! You have to do something!" she urged, grabbing my arm and trying to pull me toward the stairs.

I didn't move. I looked her straight in the eye, my expression cold.

"Do what, Sophia?"

She faltered for a second, surprised by my tone. "Well... talk to him! You're the only one he ever listens to. You need to calm him down before your dad gets home!"

The same words as last time. The same script.

But this time, the actress was going off-script.

"You know," I said, my voice dangerously sweet, "you're right. But I can't go down there looking like this." I gestured to my pajamas. "It would be so improper."

I turned my back on her and walked to my closet. "Sophia, could you be a dear? I heard from Dad's assistant that the new limited-edition Céleste purse is dropping at the downtown boutique today. They only have three. If you leave right now, you might just get one."

Sophia' s eyes widened. Greed instantly replaced her feigned panic. The Céleste purse was all she'd talked about for a month.

"But... what about Liam?" she asked, though her feet were already turning toward the hallway.

"Don't worry," I said, pulling a dress from its hanger. "I'll handle it. A purse like that is more important. You deserve it."

"You really think so?"

"I insist."

That was all it took. She was gone in a flash, her footsteps hurrying down the stairs and out the front door, abandoning the "terrible" scene for a chance at a status symbol.

The moment I heard the front door close, my smile vanished.

The house was quiet for a moment, save for the muffled sounds from Liam's room.

Phase one was complete.

Now, for phase two. Let the real performance begin.