REBORN TO LOVE MY FATHER-IN-LAW

Scarlett Vance“Please don’t do this,” I screamed loudly, my desperate pleas echoing through the empty warehouse. Immense fear coursed through me, causing my body to tremble violently.I stared up at my husband of two years—Luca Vance—Alpha heir of the Dark Eclipse Pack. He stood towering above me with a wide grin on his face.“Let me go, Luca.” I thrashed hard against the silver chains used to bind me, but I gasped out painfully as they bit deeper into my skin. “This isn’t what you promised me, Luca.” Tears streamed down my cheeks.He cupped his ears mockingly, as if my pleas were nothing but meaningless noise. Just as he parted his lips to speak, the heavy doors were pushed open.I snapped my head to the side and saw her stepping in.Zara, my best friend. She was still dressed in her stripping outfit—a red mesh dress that left nothing to the imagination and red ankle boots that hit the floor sharply as she approached us in slow, deliberate steps, like she owned the place. She stoppe

Scarlett Vance.The heels of my boots struck the floor sharply as I walked into the clubhouse. I waved at some of the bikers and strippers by the entrance, who paid me homage.Inside, red neon lights flashed. Loud music pulsed through the room like a heartbeat. Some strippers dressed in fishnets were on the stage, twisting around the pole, swaying their bodies rhythmically to the music, while others were straddling the thighs of men. The scent of cigar smoke and alcohol lingered heavily in the air.Then I saw her.Zara.Walking toward me in slow, deliberate steps, just like she had walked into the warehouse in my previous life. Her hips moved with reckless abandon. The men stared at her, their gazes lustful and hungry.“Babe… over here.”“Let me take care of you.”Of course, every man wanted her. She was the head stripper — the one sexy and energetic enough to drive even the strongest man crazy, especially when she was dancing on stage.We had been friends since I was still the Pack’s

Scarlett's POV "Get out." Two words was all he gave me. I walked out of that VIP lounge with my chin up and my spine straight, because I would die before I let Dominic Vance see me crumble. The heavy door clicked shut behind me, and the moment it did, my legs almost gave out. I pressed my back against the cold corridor wall and stayed there, just breathing. The bass from the music downstairs vibrated through the floor and up through my heels, and I used it like a drumbeat to keep myself together. He had dismissed me like I was a nonentity, which, fine, was technically what I was, but that was not the point. The point was that in my previous life, he had not been able to keep his hands off me by the third minute. He had been warm, intense and hungry. This Dominic of today was none of those things. This Dominic was a wall. I pressed my fist to my sternum and forced myself to think straight. He had seen through every move I made. The dropped glass, the stumble, the "Da

Dominic’s POV“Get out.”The words had come out of my mouth with ease. Giving no room for argument, clean and final. But she was barely out the door before my hand—the one holding the glass—started to shake.I sat in my study now, alone, the way I preferred to be. The whiskey was still full. I had not touched it. I had been staring at it for forty minutes, watching the amber liquid sit perfectly still in the glass while everything inside me was the opposite of still.I could still smell the fire if I let myself. Gasoline and smoke. And underneath both of those… jasmine.Scarlett screaming my name with her hands stretched toward me while the chains kept her just out of reach. The flames climbing her legs and the heat tearing through the warehouse while Luca stood there smiling.And I could not move.Because Luca's men had put three bullets in me.Because my body had already begun the slow, humiliating work of dying.“If there is a next life… do not choose him, Scarlett.” Those had been

Scarlett Vance“The Alpha wants you in his study, now.”Lyra delivered the message without looking directly at me.Pack members always spoke like that when the words came from Dominic Vance.I was sitting at the vanity in the bedroom, halfway through pinning my hair up.My hands stopped.His study.Not the VIP lounge.Not the clubhouse.His private study in the east wing of the mansion. Behind a door I had passed many times but never entered.In my previous life he had never once called me there.The lounge was where he received people.The study was where he dealt with them.I slowly placed the hairpin down on the table.I stood up.I smoothed my dress with both hands.Then I looked at myself in the mirror.Three steady seconds.My face was calm.My eyes were not.“Tell him I’m on my way,” I said.Lyra nodded and left.The room felt quieter after the door closed.I exhaled slowly.The walk to the east wing felt longer than it should have.Every step gave my mind space to run through