Reborn To Claim My Billionaire Enemy

Delois Thornton's lungs burned as if someone had poured battery acid down her throat.

In the chaotic darkness of her mind, a chaotic, looping dream played out. A bizarre, absurd image flashed: Bart Hawkins was on one knee, holding a diamond ring, his rough face uncharacteristically soft. She scrambled backward in the dream, her chest heaving with panic.

The scene violently fractured. Suddenly, she was chasing Julian Sloan. His crisp, clean shirt was just out of reach.

Julian turned. His eyes were flat, dead, and filled with absolute disgust. He raised his hands and shoved her hard in the chest.

Her feet slipped on the muddy bank. Gravity seized her. She plummeted backward into the freezing river.

The ice-cold water swallowed her whole. It rushed up her nose and down her throat, choking off her scream. She thrashed her arms, her fingers clawing at the empty, freezing current. Her chest convulsed. The lack of oxygen made her vision spotty.

Just as her body began to go limp, a heavy, muscular arm wrapped around her waist like a steel band.

The grip was bruising. It yanked her upward with terrifying force.

She broke the surface. The blinding spring sunlight stabbed at her closed eyelids.

Delois's eyes snapped open. She gasped, sucking in massive amounts of air. Her throat felt raw, completely shredded.

She was lying flat on her back in the muddy grass of the riverbank. Her clothes clung to her skin like a freezing second layer. Her entire body shook with violent, uncontrollable tremors. Her teeth chattered so hard her jaw ached.

Bart Hawkins was kneeling beside her. He was completely soaked. Drops of water fell from his messy, dark hair and splattered directly onto her pale face.

His jaw was clenched tight. A deep crease formed between his dark eyebrows. His eyes held a mixture of deep annoyance and a tight, hidden tension.

He didn't offer a comforting word. Instead, he raised his large, calloused hand and slapped her cheek.

It wasn't a gentle tap. It was a sharp, stinging strike meant to shock her nervous system.

The skin on her cheek burned instantly. The sharp sting yanked her scattered consciousness back into her skull.

She blinked, her vision clearing. She stared up at the familiar face. The faint, jagged scar near his eyebrow. The sharp line of his jaw. It was Bart. The boy she had fought with since childhood. Her family's sworn enemy.

Bart saw her pupils focus. The rigid tension in his broad shoulders instantly collapsed. He let out a long, harsh breath.

He pushed himself up to his feet. He shook his wet leather jacket, sending cold drops flying. He looked down at her, his expression twisting into a sneer.

"Jumping into a freezing river over a city boy volunteer," Bart said, his voice a low, mocking rumble. "Your brain is completely waterlogged, Delois."

Delois stared at him. Her mind was a blank, spinning void. She didn't remember jumping. She didn't remember the river.

She pressed her palms into the cold mud, trying to push herself up. The moment she shifted, a blinding, splitting pain exploded in the back of her head.

She gasped, her hand flying to the source of the agony. Her trembling fingers brushed against a massive, throbbing lump. They came away sticky.

Bart's eyes tracked the movement. He saw the dark red blood coating her pale fingers. The sneer vanished from his face. He cursed under his breath, a harsh, ugly sound.

Before he could move, the sound of heavy boots and panicked voices rushed toward them. A crowd of townspeople was running down the grassy slope.

Her cousin, Ann Spence, was leading the pack. Ann's face was twisted in an exaggerated mask of sheer panic.

Ann shoved her way to the front. She dropped to her knees beside Delois, letting out a high-pitched, theatrical shriek.

Ann snapped her head up and pointed a shaking finger directly at Bart.

"You pushed her!" Ann screamed, making sure every person in the crowd heard her. "I saw you! You pushed Delois into the river!"

Bart let out a dark, humorless chuckle. He shoved his wet hands deep into his jacket pockets. He didn't even blink at the accusation. He just stood there, refusing to defend himself to the gathering mob.

Delois looked at Ann's face. A massive gap in her memory made her stomach drop. She opened her mouth, her voice a raspy whisper.

"Is it... is it the Spring Fair today?" Delois asked.

Ann looked at her with wide, fake-pitying eyes.

"Delois," Ann said loudly. "The Spring Fair was six months ago."

The words hit Delois like a physical blow to the chest. Her breath stopped. Her entire body went completely rigid in the mud. Six months. She had lost six solid months of her life.

The crowd erupted into loud, cruel whispers. They pointed at her wet clothes, laughing about how she tried to kill herself because Julian rejected her.

The humiliation burned hotter than the physical pain. The world tilted violently. The faces of the crowd blurred into a sickening spin, and the darkness rushed back in to claim her.

The darkness was not peaceful. Delois felt her body falling through an endless, suffocating void. Her stomach plummeted, and her heart hammered wildly against her ribs.

Suddenly, the blackness shattered like glass. She was thrown into a dream so vivid it made her skin crawl.

She was watching herself. She saw her own body, looking thin and desperate, clinging to Julian Sloan's arm. Julian's face was twisted in pure revulsion. He peeled her fingers off his sleeve like she was a diseased insect.

The scene violently shifted. She was looking into the Thornton family kitchen. Her sister-in-law, Felicie, was hiding behind the door. Felicie was pointing at Delois's retreating back, her shoulders shaking with silent, malicious laughter.

The nightmare accelerated, flashing like a broken film projector.

She saw her elderly parents walking down Main Street. Their shoulders were slumped. Neighbors pointed and whispered about their crazy, desperate daughter. Her parents kept their heads down, swallowing the bitter humiliation.

Then, the images turned bloody.

She saw a bank officer nailing a bright red foreclosure notice to the front door of the Thornton farmhouse.

She saw her oldest brother, Gonzalo, his face bruised and bleeding. Cold steel handcuffs were snapped around his wrists. A police officer shoved him roughly into the back of a squad car.

A screech of tires tore through her eardrums. She saw her second brother, Connie, lying on the asphalt. A pool of dark blood expanded rapidly around his head.

She saw her mother, Blanca. Blanca was lying in a sterile hospital bed, her skin gray and sunken. Blanca's weak hand squeezed Delois's fingers one last time before her chest stopped moving forever.

Delois tried to scream, but her throat was paralyzed.

The dream snapped to a completely different world. A towering skyscraper in Manhattan.

Bart Hawkins stood in front of a massive floor-to-ceiling window. He wasn't wearing his wet leather jacket. He was wearing a dark, perfectly tailored bespoke suit that screamed unimaginable wealth.

A television in the background played a financial news report. The anchor's voice announced Bart Hawkins as the country's newest billionaire tech mogul.

The camera angle of her dream zoomed in on Bart's massive mahogany desk. Sitting right in the center, carefully preserved, was a faded, cheap cotton handkerchief.

Delois recognized it instantly. It was her old handkerchief. The one she had thrown at him in disgust years ago.

The air in the dream turned freezing cold. The luxurious office vanished.

Delois found herself curled into a tight ball in the corner of a damp, moldy basement. Her bones ached from the cold. Her stomach cramped with violent hunger. She was completely alone. She closed her eyes in the dark, waiting for death.

The sheer terror of the vision crashed over her like a tidal wave. She fought against the paralysis.

She opened her mouth and forced the air out of her lungs.

"No!"

Delois's eyes snapped open. Her pupils were dilated, adjusting to the dim light. She sucked in a massive, ragged breath of real air.

She was lying in her own bed. The familiar floral wallpaper surrounded her. Her forehead was slick with cold sweat. Her nightgown clung to her damp back. She instinctively reached up, her trembling fingers wrapping around the old, wooden amulet her grandmother had given her. The familiar, braided cord and the cool touch of the wood grounded her slightly.

Her mother, Blanca, was sitting on the edge of the mattress. Blanca held a damp washcloth in her rough hands. Her eyes were swollen and red, the skin around them puffy from hours of crying.

The moment Delois opened her eyes, Blanca dropped the washcloth. She leaned forward and crushed Delois against her chest.

"You foolish girl," Blanca sobbed, her voice cracking. "Why would you do something so stupid? Why would you jump?"

Delois felt the solid, warm weight of her mother. She felt the callouses on Blanca's hands gripping her shoulders. Her brain fired on all cylinders.

She looked at the old wooden dresser. She looked at the faded curtains. The horrific images she had just witnessed weren't just a nightmare. They were a brutal, unfiltered preview of her actual future. And they were a key. As the terror of the vision receded, the locked doors in her mind burst open. The missing six months of her life came rushing back in a dizzying torrent. Every humiliation, every stupid mistake she had made over Julian, every cruel whisper in town-she remembered it all with agonizing clarity.

She realized she was nothing but a pathetic, tragic side character in a story meant to destroy her family. But right now, her mother was alive. Her brothers were safe. The farm was theirs.

Delois wrapped her arms tightly around Blanca's waist. The lingering panic in her chest hardened into something cold and sharp. She would not let that future happen. She would tear it apart with her bare hands if she had to.

Suddenly, the heavy thud of boots echoed from the hallway.

"I'm going to kill that bastard!" her brother Gonzalo roared, his voice shaking the floorboards.

The sound of Gonzalo's roar sent a violent jolt of adrenaline straight into Delois's bloodstream. Her heart seized.

She shoved the heavy quilt off her legs. Her bare feet hit the cold wooden floorboards. The room spun wildly, but she ignored the nausea and threw her weight toward the bedroom door.

She yanked the brass handle and stumbled into the hallway.

Gonzalo was standing at the top of the stairs. His face was flushed dark red with pure rage. In his massive hands, he gripped the cold steel of his double-barreled shotgun.

Beside him, Connie was furiously shoving heavy brass shells into the pockets of his denim jacket. The other three brothers crowded the narrow space, Ean gripping a heavy iron pitchfork, while the youngest twins, Leo and Luke, stood shoulder-to-shoulder, their fists clenched, their jaws set in murderous lines.

Blanca had rushed out behind Delois. She threw her arms wide, trying to physically block her massive sons from going down the stairs. The men simply pressed forward, their combined weight forcing Blanca to step back.

Delois gripped the wooden doorframe to keep from collapsing. She forced air into her burning lungs.

"Stop!" Delois screamed, her voice cracking with desperation.

Every man in the hallway froze. Five pairs of eyes snapped toward her pale, sweating face.

Gonzalo's grip on the shotgun loosened slightly. A flash of deep pain crossed his eyes when he saw how weak she looked. But the anger quickly swallowed it.

"Get back in bed, Delois," Gonzalo growled, his teeth grinding together. "I'm going to break both of Bart Hawkins's legs."

Delois pushed off the doorframe. She stumbled forward and grabbed Gonzalo's thick forearm. Her fingers dug into his flannel shirt.

"He didn't push me!" Delois yelled, her chest heaving. "Bart didn't push me into the river!"

The brothers exchanged confused, doubtful glances. Connie shook his head.

"You hit your head hard, Del," Connie said gently. "You don't know what you're saying. Ann saw him do it."

Gonzalo gently but firmly peeled Delois's trembling fingers off his arm. He stepped around Blanca and started stomping down the wooden stairs.

Panic clawed at Delois's throat. If they attacked Bart now, the blood feud would escalate. It would trigger the exact chain of events that ended with Gonzalo in handcuffs and Connie dead on the asphalt.

She ignored the blinding pain in her skull. She lunged forward and wrapped both her arms tightly around Gonzalo's waist from behind.

Gonzalo stopped dead on the steps. He didn't dare move forward and risk dragging her down with him.

Delois pressed her face against his broad back.

"If you walk out that door and touch him," Delois threatened, her voice dropping to a dead, serious whisper, "I will kill myself right now. I swear to God, Gonzalo."

The sheer absolute certainty in her voice sent a chilling silence through the stairwell. The brothers stared at her, completely paralyzed by the threat.

Before anyone could speak, the deafening roar of a failing engine shattered the quiet.

A rusted, beat-up Ford pickup truck skidded onto the gravel just outside the Thornton front yard. The brakes squealed in protest.

The driver's side door was kicked open. Bart stepped out. His face was a mask of cold indifference. In his right hand, he carried a white plastic medical kit. He had driven halfway down the road before the image of Delois's pale, trembling fingers coated in dark red blood overpowered his common sense. He cursed himself for caring about a Thornton, but he couldn't just leave her bleeding from a head wound.

Gonzalo looked through the hallway window. He saw Bart standing on their property. The hesitation vanished. The rage exploded.

Gonzalo ripped himself free from Delois's grip. He dropped the shotgun on the floor and charged down the rest of the stairs like a runaway freight train. He burst through the front door.

Connie was right on his heels.

Delois let out a terrified scream and sprinted after them, her bare feet slapping against the wood.

Out in the muddy front yard, Gonzalo used his sprinting momentum to throw a devastating right hook aimed directly at Bart's jaw.

Bart's reflexes were terrifyingly fast. He jerked his head to the side. The fist grazed his ear. The medical kit slipped from his fingers, crashing to the ground and spilling white gauze rolls into the mud.

Connie tackled Bart from the left side. The three large men crashed into the wet, slippery grass, a tangle of swinging fists and grunts.

Bart was strong, but he was outnumbered. Gonzalo's heavy boot connected solidly with Bart's stomach. Bart let out a sharp grunt of pain and stumbled backward, his guard dropping for a split second.

Gonzalo pulled his arm back for a finishing blow to Bart's face.

Delois didn't think. She threw her body directly into the center of the violence. She spread her arms wide, shielding Bart's chest with her own back.

Gonzalo's eyes widened in horror. He tried to pull the punch, but the momentum was already carrying his heavy fist straight toward Delois's face.

In a fraction of a second, Bart's large hand shot out. He grabbed Delois roughly by the waist and yanked her hard against his chest.

Bart spun them around, using his own broad back as a human shield.

Gonzalo's fist slammed heavily into Bart's shoulder blade. The massive impact knocked Bart off balance. His boots slipped in the slick mud.

They fell backward. Delois crashed down right on top of Bart's solid chest. The sudden, violent stop snapped her head forward.

Her lips smashed directly, perfectly, against Bart's mouth.