Darkness.
It was the kind of darkness that swallowed you whole. The kind that didn't just take your sight it took everything. Sound. Time. The very sense of yourself.
I was floating. Or maybe I was falling. Maybe both. Maybe neither.
All I knew was that I was dead.
Liam fucking Whitmore.
Isla fucking Davenport.
Camilla fucking Devereaux.
My husband. My best friend. My step-sister.
The unholy trinity of betrayal.
They had planned it. Executed it. Laughed while I bled out on the cold, marble floor of my own penthouse.
And now I was here. Wherever the fuck here was.
I tried to breathe. Nothing. Tried to move. Nothing.
"Okay," I muttered to myself or at least, I thought I did. "So this is what dying feels like. Kinda underwhelming."
And then?
A voice.
"Wow. You really are something else."
I turned. Or maybe I didn't. Again, the whole "dead" thing was messing with my sense of physics.
And there it was.
A figure.
Not a person. Not exactly. It was... shifting. Too bright and too shadowy all at once, like someone had taken a kaleidoscope and poured liquid moonlight into it.
I squinted. "So, what are you? The Grim Reaper? God? My ancestors? A weird fever dream from the afterlife?"
The figure laughed.
Not some holy, echoing, divine sound. No. It was low. Amused. Kinda bitchy.
"Oh, Valeria," it purred. "You are so much fun."
I crossed my arms or tried to, considering I had no real body right now. "Right. So you know my name. And I'm assuming you're here to do the whole 'this is your life' montage before I fade into eternal nothingness?"
Silence. Then:
"Not exactly."
I raised an invisible brow. "Then what? You gonna tell me I was a good person? That my death was unfair? That I'm off to some cloud kingdom where rich bitches get unlimited martinis and free Chanel?"
Another chuckle. "You? A good person?"
"Excuse me?" I snapped.
The figure hummed. "Val, Val, Val… Do you know what's fascinating about you?"
I rolled my nonexistent eyes. "Oh, do tell."
"You're furious."
"No shit, Sherlock."
"You should be mourning. You should be broken, sobbing, repenting for whatever sins you think put you in this position." The voice tilted with amusement. "But you're not. You're pissed. You died in the most humiliating, brutal way possible, and instead of grieving, you're plotting."
I stilled.
Because… yeah.
I was.
I wasn't thinking about what I lost. I wasn't thinking about some tragic, poetic, 'what could have been' bullshit.
I was thinking about how I should have gutted Liam Whitmore the first time he lied to my face.
How I should have set fire to Isla's entire existence the second I saw her looking at my husband like she owned him.
How I should have seen Camilla for the power-hungry, backstabbing, manipulative bitch she was.
And that's when it hit me.
This wasn't a punishment.
This was a test.
I straightened or imagined I did, considering I still didn't know what the hell my body even was. "What are you offering?"
The figure grinned. I felt it.
"Two choices," it said. "One, you move on. Whatever that means for you."
I inhaled sharply. "And two?"
Another pause. Then, a whisper.
"You go back."
Silence.
I stopped breathing. If I even was in the first place.
"Back?" I repeated. "As in… back to my life?"
The voice was smug. "One year earlier, to be exact."
My heart or soul or whatever the fuck was left of me nearly stopped.
"A year," I whispered. "Before… before they..."
"Yes."
Before Liam. Before Isla. Before Camilla.
Before the betrayal.
Before the execution.
I could feel something stirring deep inside me. Something dark. Twisted. Vengeful.
The figure leaned in. "What do you say, Valeria?"
I exhaled. Then I laughed.
Slow. Sharp. Dangerous.
"Bitch," I whispered.
"Send me back."
And just like that, the world shattered.
Not like glass, not like something delicate breaking apart. No, it was more than that. It was the unraveling of reality itself.
One second, I was weightless, suspended in nothingness.
The next thing, I was drowning.
Not in water. In sensation.
The feeling of silk sheets beneath my fingers. The cool night air against my skin. The faint scent of vanilla and something expensive lingering in the air my perfume.
I gasped. My body jerked upright, lungs dragging in breath like I had just surfaced from the depths of hell.
And that's when it hit me.
I was in bed.
In my bedroom.
I blinked fast, the room still a blur of shadows and moonlight. My heart was hammering, my skin prickling like I'd just been electrocuted.
What the fuck.
I reached for my throat, half expecting to feel the raw, ugly wound that had ended me. The blood. The pain.
Nothing.
Just smooth, untouched skin. Like I had never been...
No.
No fucking way.
I sucked in a breath and forced myself to focus.
Where was I?
I looked around. The bedroom was familiar. Too familiar.
The marble floors, the high ceilings, the glass balcony doors leading to a view of the city.
My penthouse.
The same penthouse I had died in...Gosh I felt goosebumps.
I inhaled sharply, my head pounding, my body stiff. Everything felt too real, too solid.
I threw the covers off me and swung my legs over the edge of the bed, I need to step away from that bed I felt disgust because remembering how that brat kept banging My husband just made me feel sick already.
My fingers trembled slightly as they brushed against the fabric of my nightgown silk. Expensive. But old.
I frowned. This wasn't the nightgown I wore before I died.
Something was off.
I turned toward the bedside table, reaching blindly for my phone. When I grabbed it, the screen lit up the date glowing back at me.
March 14th 2023,
I froze.
The blood in my veins turned to ice.
This wasn't right.
This couldn't be right.
Because March 14th 2023 was exactly one year before I died.
My breath caught. My fingers tightened around the phone.
No. No, no, no, no.
This wasn't happening.
This was impossible.
My chest rose and fell too fast, my head spinning with the kind of dizziness that felt too fucking real to be a dream.
I shot up from the bed so fast I nearly tripped. The room tilted, but I caught myself, my grip tightening around the edge of the nightstand.
I turned toward the mirror.
And I saw her.
Me.
But… younger.
My skin was smoother. My hair had that effortless shine I'd lost in the stress of that final year. My eyes they weren't dead yet.
I took a step closer, reaching out like I needed to touch the reflection to believe it was real.
What. The. Fuck.
A slow, breathy laugh left my lips. Disbelieving. Hysterical.
I squeezed my eyes shut, my mind racing.
This had to be a trick. A hallucination. A fever dream from the afterlife.
But then…
The voice.
The one from the darkness. The one that had given me a choice.
"One year earlier, to be exact."
A shiver crawled down my spine.
I opened my eyes again.
I wasn't hallucinating. I wasn't dreaming.
I was back.
A year before my death.
A year before the betrayal.
A year before Liam, Isla, and Camilla sank their teeth into me and ripped me apart.
A slow grin crept onto my lips.
Oh, this was going to be fun.
I let out another laugh, low and wicked.
Because now?
Now, I had the script.
And I wasn't going to play the role of the naive, blind little wife anymore.
No.
This time?
This queen is back for revenge.