Chapter 1

In the back alley of Wynterhaven, three men were unzipping their pants.

Elowen Perez's fingers scraped across the frozen ground. Broken gravel. A cigarette butt. Then — a shattered beer bottle. The jagged edge split her palm open before she could think. Warm blood threaded between her fingers and dripped onto the concrete.

She didn't hesitate. When the first man lunged, she drove the broken glass into his forearm with everything she had.

The wet, dull sound of glass punching through skin.

"Fuck —"

He reeled back, clutching his arm, howling. Hot blood sprayed across her face. The iron smell of it flooded her throat. The other two exchanged a look, and whatever restraint had been left in their eyes drained away completely.

Elowen already knew. She wasn't getting out of this alley.

She looked down at the glass in her hand. A single drop of blood still clung to the sharpest edge. At the mouth of the alley, Abigail Perez's silhouette was already gone — her heels had clicked away into the dark, each step as clean and final as a bell tolling.

"No next life," she thought.

But if there were one — she would never again get on her knees and beg for love from people who never wanted to give it.

She pressed the broken glass to her carotid artery. Closed her eyes. Pushed.

Warmth. Then a rush. Then nothing.

In the last flicker of her consciousness, she caught the smell of birthday candles being blown out — the faint, sweet char of smoke. Her parents had stood around her eighteenth birthday cake, singing slightly off-key, their faces lit up and warm and real.

So it had all been a lie. Or maybe once, it had been true. But the truth is always crueler than the lie — because first, it makes you believe.

Three hours earlier, she had still been standing in the Perez Villa living room.

Eighteen years. The DNA report had hit like a verdict, declaring that everything she'd believed about her life was nothing but an elaborate mistake. From that day forward, she'd made herself into something small and useful — a dog angling for scraps. When her parents frowned, she combed through everything she'd done, searching for the fault. When Abigail cried a single tear, she apologized.

But the more she tried, the colder their eyes became.

Abigail always found a way. A glass of red wine knocked over at just the right moment. A sigh left unfinished. A fall timed perfectly on the stairs. Every single time, her parents sided with Abigail — scolding Elowen for being difficult, ungrateful, impossible to live with.

Then, a month ago: Abigail "fell" down the staircase and sobbed that Elowen had pushed her.

No chance to explain. Bank accounts frozen. Number blocked. Her bags thrown out the front door.

She'd slept in subway stations. Dug through garbage. Stood in Wynterhaven's winter nights until her fingers went purple. And tonight — she'd been cornered in a dead-end alley by three men who smelled of rot and cheap liquor.

The one who put her here was Abigail.

Prada suit. Cartier earrings. A three-carat diamond that threw cold sparks under the streetlamp. She'd walked into the alley as she owned it, and maybe in that moment, she did.

"Mom and Dad gave up on you a long time ago," Abigail said. She raised her right hand and let the diamond catch the light. "And your fiancé — he proposed to me last night."

"That's not possible." Elowen shook her head. Her hair was stuck to her wet cheeks. "They love me. They would never—"

The slap came clean and sharp.

"Shameless." Abigail flicked her wrist, contempt pouring freely from her eyes. "Those are my parents. You're nothing but a baby they brought home by mistake. What gives you the right to compete with me?"

Elowen's cheek burned. But her chest hurt worse.

She had never understood why Abigail could always see her next move before she made it. Every trap felt like it had been rehearsed a hundred times. Every blow landed in exactly the right place.

Until Abigail crouched in front of her — voice soft, almost gentle, like she was sharing a secret between friends.

"Do you know why you lost? Because I came back. I was reborn." Her smile was sweet. Her eyes were ice.

"Every little move you made in your past life — I already knew. Did you really think I'd let you keep living well? I wanted you to lose everything. No way back. Ever."

Reborn.

The word unlocked every door she hadn't been able to open. Why Abigail always knew. Why nothing Elowen did ever worked. Why every escape route had already been sealed before she'd even thought to run.

She hadn't lost because she wasn't strong enough.

She'd lost because her opponent had already seen every card in the deck.

"Alright." Abigail straightened up and turned to the three men with a gracious smile.

"My sister has been pampered her whole life. Soft as anything." A pause. "Tonight — my treat."

The men looked at each other. Something hungry and bright moved through their eyes.

And that was how Elowen ended up here — on the ground, bleeding, alone.

She pressed the glass to her throat. Closed her eyes.

If there's a next life — I won't beg. Not for any of them.

She pushed.

"Elowen? Elowen!"

The voice came from underwater. Muffled. Far away. And yet familiar in a way that pulled at something deep.

Her eyes flew open.

A crystal chandelier. Twelve lights. Swarovski facets scattered tiny stars across a cream Persian rug.

The Perez Villa living room. The same room she had lived in for eighteen years.

She grabbed her own throat. Smooth skin. A steady pulse. She looked at her hands — nails trimmed, painted soft pink, unbroken. Not the hands she'd had on the street, knuckles swollen, nails cracked from the cold.

On the sofa, Abigail sat in a cheap white dress — the one the Perez family had bought when they first brought her back from the countryside. Hair loose. Eyes faintly pink. The picture of a startled, fragile thing.

"Elowen..." She bit her lower lip. "Can we live like real sisters from now on?"

Vaughn Perez sat across from them, expression guarded. Hazel Fairchild had an arm around Abigail's shoulders, eyes wet.

This scene.

The same as three years ago.

If Abigail could be reborn — then what about her?

Elowen breathed in slowly. The air filled her lungs. Her heart beat in her chest. The carpet was solid under her feet. She was here. She was real.

She was back. Three years back — to the very day Abigail had been brought home.

Vaughn cleared his throat. She knew that tone. Top-down. Patient in the way that powerful men are patient when they've already decided.

"Elowen. Abigail is mine and your mother's biological daughter. She's had a hard life. Your room faces south and gets the best light. We'd like her to have it while she recovers."

"There are plenty of other rooms," Hazel added quickly, gentle and soothing, the way you'd speak to a child who doesn't yet understand. "Pick whichever one you like."

Word for word. The same speech.

Elowen's gaze moved slowly to Abigail.

The "startled little rabbit" was watching her from the corner of her eye. And beneath the performance — beneath the bitten lip and the pink-rimmed eyes — something flickered.

Wariness. And satisfaction.

Because this rabbit knew exactly what she had planned for the next three years.

In her last life, those words had closed around Elowen's chest like a fist. She'd swallowed every feeling, smiled, said "okay" — and spent three years grinding herself into nothing trying to earn back something that was never really hers to begin with.

She'd held her own heart out to them. They'd found it beneath them.

Elowen stood up.

"No."

Her voice was quiet. But it was clear, and it was steady, and it landed in the middle of the room like something dropped from a height.

"You want my room — take it." She looked at the two people she had called Mom and Dad for eighteen years. Watched the surprise move across their faces. Felt something deep in her chest — something that had been rotting for a long time — finally begin to close. "I've made my decision."

A pause.

"I'm going to find my real parents."

The living room went completely still.

Abigail's pupils contracted. A crack ran through her carefully held expression — small, fast, unmistakable. Something she hadn't prepared for.

Elowen turned toward the staircase. Back straight. Steps even. Behind her, Hazel made a sharp sound, and Vaughn said something in a clipped voice, but she didn't turn around.

In her last life, she had given them everything — every piece of herself, right down to the last shred of dignity.

This time, she didn't owe any of them a single thing.