Reborn, I Threw Out Every Parasite in My House

I am the sole heir to the Hartwell fortune.

But this birthday dinner — the one meant to sign the family trust into my hands on my twenty-second year — was being ruined by the housekeeper's daughter.

Brianna had done it on purpose. She'd stolen the archival couture gown my late mother left behind, then thrown herself into the champagne tower and pinned it on me.

"Oh God, Audrey, why did you push me?" She was already crying, her voice pitched for the crowd. "I know you hate seeing me in this dress, but your father was the one who insisted I wear it. Please don't make me leave."

In my last life, I'd stood there sobbing, waving my hands, trying to explain.

For that, I'd been stripped of my inheritance on the spot, committed to a psychiatric ward, and in the end, every fingernail torn out one by one, I'd died in agony.

But I'd been reborn.

Now I looked down at Brianna crumpled among the shattered crystal, playing the victim, and I didn't waste a word.

I crossed the floor, stood over her, drew my arm back, and slapped her across the face as hard as I could.

"Shut your mouth."

The crack split the air of the Hartwell ballroom like a gunshot.

The force knocked Brianna sideways. She screamed, one cheek swelling instantly, blood beading at the corner of her lips, her flawless makeup ruined.

Every socialite in New York sucked in a breath. Then dead silence.

"Audrey! Have you lost your mind?"

My cousin Johnny shoved through the crowd, dropped down, and pulled Brianna against his chest, inspecting a shallow scratch on her leg like a man watching someone bleed out. It barely even broke the skin.

Then he rounded on me, eyes wild with fury. "Brianna has spent her whole life stepping aside for you. You have everything, and you still can't stop tearing her down."

He stabbed a finger at the floor. "You vicious little gutter rat. Get on your knees and apologize. Now."

"He's right. You've gone way too far." My fiancé, Herbert Penrose, was right behind him, already peeling off his tailored jacket to drape over Brianna's shoulders.

The man who'd never once looked at me with anything but frost now stared with heartbroken rage:

"Thank God we never made it official. You're not worth a single hair on her head. Apologize, or I swear you'll regret it."

I looked at the two of them. The two men who, in another life, had held the doors open while I was dragged away screaming.

This time, not one tear fell.

The joy of being alive again and the fury of remembering everything caught fire in my blood at once.

To hell with keeping the peace. I had debts to collect, and I was collecting them tonight.

"You want me to apologize?" I smiled, slow and cold, and walked straight toward them across the broken glass.

Brianna shrank into Johnny's arms, tears falling on cue. "Audrey, don't blame Herbert and Johnny. They're just upset. As long as it makes you feel better, I'm willing to—"

Crack.

I didn't let her finish. I backhanded her across the other cheek.

The blow sent her tumbling out of Johnny's arms. She hit the floor hard, crying out.

"Audrey, you're out of your goddamn mind!" Johnny's face went crimson. He lurched up and swung his fist at my face. "You think you can put your hands on me?"

I didn't flinch. I drove my heel straight into his kneecap.

Crack.

The sound was sickening. Six-foot-three of old-money muscle folded like paper.

Johnny's scream tore through the room as he crashed backward into the buffet table, bringing down platters of French bisque, red wine, and crushed ice in one spectacular collapse.

He rolled in the wreckage, clutching his knee, howling.

"My God." Herbert had gone the color of ash, his finger shaking as he pointed at me. "You just assaulted your own cousin. And Brianna, who is your family in all but blood. I'm calling the police."

It was his favorite trick. He loved elevating the help's daughter to my level just to make me look like a monster.

"Family? My cousin?"

I slapped his hand aside and cracked a third slap across his face before the words were fully out.

He staggered half a step. His wire-rimmed glasses spun off into the dark. Blood welled at the corner of his mouth.

"Herbert, if the champagne's rotted your brain, go rinse it out. Get straight whose house you're standing in."

I turned to face the whole room, my voice landing cold and even on every person there.

"I am Audrey Hartwell, the only heir this family has."

"That woman on the floor is a servant's daughter who thought she could take what isn't hers." I glanced down at Brianna, then back up. "That one whimpering in the soup is a broke relative my father dragged in out of pity. A nobody with no standing in this family whatsoever."

A beat. I let the silence do the work.

"These two have eaten at the Hartwell table by our generosity alone. Tonight they came to my birthday and tried to force me — the rightful heiress of this house — to kneel before the housekeeper's child." I almost laughed. "They have no idea how good they've had it."

The room erupted.

The looks aimed at the two of them turned from pity to open contempt.

"Audrey's the real heiress. Brianna's just the help's daughter…"

"A charity case forcing the young mistress to kneel? That's absurd."

Hearing the tide turn, Brianna clutched her swollen cheek, eyes brimming with venom and panic.

She couldn't work it out. The pushover who used to bow her head and cry at two harsh words had turned into something unrecognizable overnight.

"Audrey… you actually hit me." Herbert stared like the laws of physics had come undone.

"So what?" I lifted a glass of red wine off the tray of a waiter too stunned to move.

I looked at the face I'd once been so hopelessly in love with, and felt only nausea. With a flick of my wrist, I threw the whole glass into it.

Crimson ran down his custom suit, dripping, pathetic.

"You couldn't see through a trick that cheap. Reeled in by a few dollar-store tears, and you thought you were fit to be my fiancé?"

I dropped the empty glass on the carpet. "The engagement is over. Take your precious trash and get out of the Hartwell estate."

Drenched in wine, Herbert heaved for breath, shaking, unable to force out a single word.

Then the ballroom doors flew open, and a furious roar came crashing through from the hall.

"What the hell do you think you're doing? Won't you rest until you've dragged this family's name through the mud?"