Chapter 2

The roar of the fire was a deafening symphony. Heat pressed in on me from all sides, and the air was thick with the choking smell of burning wood and melted plastic. My cheek was pressed against the cool, grimy tiles of the kitchen floor, the same tiles I had scrubbed myself just yesterday.

Yesterday.

My mind was a whirlwind of confusion. Was this hell? A twisted replay of my life' s greatest traumas? I pushed myself up, my muscles aching with a phantom memory of abuse and exhaustion. I looked down at my hands. They were covered in soot, but they were my hands. No scars that weren't there before, no track marks, no signs of the months of horror I had just endured.

I was wearing my chef' s whites, the ones I' d been so proud of. I scrambled to my feet, my heart pounding a frantic rhythm against my ribs. This was real. The flames licking up the walls, the cracking of timber overhead, the distant wail of sirens growing closer.

This was the night of the fire. The beginning of the end. Or... the end of the end.

A sudden wave of nausea washed over me as the full implication hit. I was back. I had been given a second chance. The boiling oil, the trafficking, the betrayal-it had all happened, but it hadn't happened yet.

"Mark! Just make sure the accelerant cans are hidden properly! The firefighters will be here any second!"

The voice was sharp, panicked, and sickeningly familiar. It was Chloe White. It came from the direction of the back storeroom.

"I know what I'm doing, Chloe! Stop panicking," Mark' s voice shot back, laced with irritation. "I told you, the insurance report will show faulty wiring. They' ll never suspect a thing. Ava will be devastated, she'll run right into my arms, and we'll be on our way to New York with her life savings and that fat bank loan."

The words hit me like a physical blow. Hearing them now, knowing what I knew, was a special kind of torture. The casual cruelty, the meticulous planning-it was all there. I wasn't just a casualty of his ambition; I was a key ingredient in his recipe for success.

I pressed myself against a large stainless-steel prep table, hiding in the billowing smoke. My breath hitched in my throat. The naive, trusting Ava was dead, boiled away in a vat of oil in a future I had already lived. The woman standing here now was someone else, someone forged in betrayal and pain.

Every cell in my body screamed with a rage so pure and cold it felt like ice in my veins. The shock and confusion were gone, replaced by a singular, crystal-clear purpose.

Revenge.

They thought they were writing my tragedy. They had no idea I was about to rewrite theirs. I wouldn't just survive this time. I would make them burn in the very fire they had set for me. I would dismantle their empire before they could even lay the first brick.

I took a deep, shuddering breath, the smoke stinging my lungs. The sirens were closer now, almost deafening. Footsteps hurried from the storeroom. It was time. The performance was about to begin, but this time, I knew all the lines. And I would be the one directing the final act.