Chapter 1

The day I secured the finale at New York Fashion Week, my adopted sister was in a car crash that left her completely blind.

And so began a ruthless campaign to destroy my life.

Listening to me prepare for the runway, she touched her heavy gauze bandages and wept bitterly. "You're so brilliant, Valora. Not like me... I'm just a useless, blind burden."

To placate her, our brother burned my core design sketches to ashes.

On the day of the show, my finale haute couture gown was maliciously slashed to ribbons. My reputation was left in ruins, and every single sponsor pulled their funding.

Later, she live-streamed her suicide attempt from a rooftop, sobbing that a disabled girl like her didn't deserve to be loved.

My husband dropped to one knee in front of the entire world and slipped the custom diamond ring—my ring—onto her finger.

That very night, I was dead-bolted inside my roaring, fire-engulfed studio.

With toxic smoke searing my lungs, I dialed my husband's number for help, only to be met with his frustrated, impatient voice:

"Serafina is blind! The fire alarms have her terrified! Stop being so damn petty and jealous right now!"

When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day of her accident. The day she faked her blindness.

...

"It's burning... help!"

The agonizing heat of flames consuming my skin still danced along my nerve endings. The suffocating dread of toxic smoke filling my lungs jolted my eyes open.

My blurry, blood-red vision slowly snapped into focus. The metallic stench of charred flesh was suddenly replaced by the sharp, sterile bite of hospital disinfectant.

I gasped for air, cold sweat plastering my shirt to my spine.

"My eyes! Mom, I can't see! Everything is pitch black!"

A shrill, heart-wrenching sob exploded in my ears.

I turned my head stiffly. There, writhing on the hospital bed and flailing her hands wildly in the air, was a woman with a thick layer of gauze wrapped around her head.

Serafina. My adopted sister.

The ultimate beneficiary of the hospital mix-up at our birth.

When I was first brought home, my family actually tried their best to shower me with love.

But Serafina, terrified of losing her spotlight, orchestrated a series of perfect victim-acts.

She once deliberately threw herself down a flight of stairs, sobbing to my parents that I had pushed her.

From that day on, she maintained her throne as the undisputed darling, while I was branded the malicious, toxic villain of the house.

Beside her bed, my mother, Eleanor, pulled her into a heartbreaking embrace, tears streaming down her face. "Oh, my poor Serafina. Don't be afraid, sweetie. Mom is right here. The doctors will fix this, I promise!"

My brother, Leon, whipped his head around. His eyes were bloodshot as he glared at me with pure venom. "Valora! This is all because of you! If she hadn't gone out of her way to bring you that damn fabric just to please you, she never would have crashed! Are you happy now?!"

Staring at this sickeningly familiar scene, the realization crashed over me. I was reborn.

I was back on the exact day of Serafina's accident.

In my past life, she drunkenly crashed her car and used the resulting "blindness" as a weapon. She sobbed to the family, claiming the accident only happened because she was rushing to deliver the fabric I needed.

Because of that fabricated "sacrifice," I was instantly nailed to the cross.

My parents turned her accident into a blade to judge me, cursing me day in and day out for being selfish and cold-blooded.

To avenge her, Leon torched the design drafts I had poured my soul into right before Fashion Week, destroying everything I had worked for.

Shielded by my family, Serafina used a series of suicidal stunts to smoothly strip away my career and steal my husband. And in the very end, she dead-bolted me inside my studio and set it ablaze.

That night, I died in a sea of fire, my eyes wide open in disbelief.

"Valora! Are you deaf?! Your sister is crying and you can't even offer a single word of apology? You're a cold-blooded monster!" Leon's roar yanked me out of my past-life nightmares.

He stormed over and shoved me hard against the shoulder.

The sharp sting of his push brought unprecedented clarity to my mind.

My gaze slipped past a furious Leon and my mother's condemning glare, pinning itself onto the frail body on the bed, shaking so convincingly with "grief."

She had been faking her blindness from the very beginning.

The crash was nothing but a cover-up for her DUI scandal—and a perfect, tailor-made weapon to bleed me dry.

How pathetic the old me was. I actually fell for this clumsy lie. I sacrificed my career, my marriage, and my very flesh for it, ending up as a charred corpse in a towering inferno.

The phantom pain of the flames and the boiling hatred in my veins slowly crystallized into pure, ice-cold logic.

"Valora! Are you even listening to me? Lower your head and apologize to Serafina, right now! You've been jealous of her since the day you came back!" Eleanor snapped, her eyes brimming with undisguised disgust. "If she never sees again, you will be her eyes for the rest of your miserable life!"

Apologize? Atone?

I let out a sudden, soft laugh.

Why the hell should I?!