Chapter 1

The seventh time I married in Evan's place, my sister handed me the bottle again.

"Adrian, this is the last time," Serena said. "Once you help Evan test this marriage, I'll stop standing in the way of the woman you want."

She said it like she was discussing dinner plans, not asking me to risk my life.

"Evan's young. He got spooked by the whole society-marriage thing," she went on. "He's worried Catherine Sinclair might be trouble, so you need to take his place at the wedding first and see what kind of woman she is."

She set the little amber bottle in my palm.

"Same as before. Finish the ceremony, take the pill, and I'll pick you up at St. Mary's Cemetery."

My fingers tightened around the glass.

The doctor had warned me already. My body couldn't take this drug again. One more dose, and I might not wake up.

Serena never believed him. Or maybe she just didn't care enough to.

Before I could say another word, she caught my jaw and tipped the bottle to my lips.

The liquid burned all the way down.

Then the pain hit.

It ripped through my chest and stomach like I had swallowed a fistful of razor blades. I dropped to my knees on the polished floor, choking on half-formed words, my whole body shaking so hard I couldn't even crawl away.

Serena's heels clicked once against the marble.

"Don't make a scene."

By the time darkness swallowed me whole, there were tears in my eyes.

This time, I really died.

But I didn't disappear.

My soul stayed right there, suspended in the cold air, watching as my body was hauled out of an abandoned warehouse near the Bayhaven docks and loaded onto a gurney.

I watched Serena Hart pull on a white protective coat and walk into the autopsy suite.

She was the youngest medical examiner in Bayhaven.

She was also my only sister.

"Anything on identification? Can we narrow down time of death?"

Her assistant, Miles, rubbed a hand over his tired face before answering. "Male, around twenty-one. Dead at least forty-eight hours. Signs of prolonged abuse. Evidence of long-term low-dose poisoning—maybe six months or more. And whoever did this wasn't just trying to kill him. This was personal. Vindictive."

Someone muttered under their breath, "Jesus. That's sick."

Miles exhaled. "DNA should come back in two days."

Serena planted one hand on the edge of the steel table. "Find whoever did this. I don't care what it takes. I want him in court."

Then memory dragged me back to the first day she found me.

I was eighteen when Serena brought me home. She told me I'd gone missing as a child, that our parents had spent years searching for me before they died, and that the only people left in the Hart family were her... and the boy they'd adopted.

She drove out to get me herself in a black Bentley.

I still remember my sweating palms as the gates of Blackwood Manor opened. I thought that maybe I finally had a home.

The second I stepped through the front door, Serena led me toward a pretty young man sprawled across the sitting room sofa and introduced him in the same tone someone might use for a houseguest.

"Adrian, this is Evan. He's getting married tomorrow. The manor's a mess right now, so I've booked you a room at the Grand Regency."

She didn’t ask how I’d been, whether anyone had hurt me, or apologize for being late. I saw the silver at her temple, told myself not to be bitter, and turned to go.

Then Evan caught her sleeve.

He looked up at her with those soft eyes of his. "Serena, I really don't want to marry Catherine Sinclair blind. I've heard she's difficult. Beautiful, sure, but a nightmare."

He glanced at me, all innocence.

"So let Adrian stand in for me first. If she turns out okay, we switch that night and no one has to know. If she doesn't... he can take the pill, disappear, and you can pick someone else for me."

Ice flooded my veins.

Stand in for him? Fake my death?

For a family like the Sinclairs, a stunt like that could get me killed for real.

Serena didn't look the least bit alarmed. "Adrian, I'll handle it. Nobody's going to touch you."

Evan gave me that hurt little smile that always worked on her.

"You don't want to help? I mean... that's fair. You don't really feel connected to this family yet. Even if Serena begged, you wouldn't have to say yes."

That was when something dark flickered in Serena’s eyes—disappointment, irritation, maybe even blame.

Panic hit me hard and fast.

I had grown up with no home and no one waiting for me. Serena had found me.

So I said yes. I stood at the altar in a cathedral lit by a hundred candles, my face half-hidden behind a polite excuse and a carefully timed illness, and married Catherine Sinclair in Evan's place while old money and diamonds glittered in every pew.

I exchanged vows, slid the ring onto her finger, smiled for the photographers, then slipped into the groom's private lounge, uncapped the bottle, and drank.

The second it hit my throat, I knew something was wrong.

This wasn't the soft slide into unconsciousness I'd survived before. It was a full-body wreck.

Like someone had driven red-hot needles into my organs and kept twisting. Sweat soaked through my shirt. I crumpled to the floor while every breath cut like broken glass.

I don't know how long I was out.

When I opened my eyes again, I was lying in the wet grass at St. Mary's Cemetery.

Cold rain plastered my suit to my skin. Mud seeped into my cuffs.

Headlights sliced across the dark. A moment later, Serena strode toward me in black stilettos, grabbed my arm, and hauled me up like I was a drunk she was embarrassed to be seen with.

"It's just one pill," she snapped. "Did you really have to make yourself look this pathetic?"

I was shaking too hard to answer.

"Evan was worried sick," she said. "You had me driving out here in weather like this. Honestly, Adrian, your timing is unbelievable."

Once. Twice. Six times. Every time, Serena promised me it would be the last. And every time, I put on someone else's tux, wore someone else's ring, and let myself be buried under someone else's name.

I had spent seven lives waiting for her to choose me. She never did.