Chapter two

Rosette's pov 

I woke up screaming.

Air tore into my lungs like fire, sharp and unforgiving, and I jolted upright as if my body remembered dying and refused to accept anything else. My heart slammed violently against my ribs, each beat loud enough to drown out thought. Sweat soaked my skin, my nightdress clinging to me as though I had run for miles instead of fallen out of death.

The scream died in my throat.

I was not in the hospital.

There were no white walls, no machines, no antiseptic smell. Instead, soft golden light spilled through tall windows draped in ivory curtains. The room was familiar in a way that made my stomach twist. Too familiar. The antique vanity near the wall. The hand carved bedframe. The faint scent of lavender and old money.

My bedroom.

Not the one Blake had locked me away in at the end.

The one from before.

My fingers trembled as I pressed them against my chest. My heart was racing, but it was strong. Whole. I was not bleeding. There was no pain tearing through my abdomen. No weakness. No lingering haze of drugs creeping through my veins.

I was alive.

I slid my hands down my body in disbelief, pressing against my stomach, my thighs, my arms. No IV marks. No scars. No ache of childbirth.

My breath hitched.

“No,” I whispered. “This is not real.”

I swung my legs off the bed and nearly collapsed when my feet touched the floor. Not from weakness, but from shock. The carpet was plush beneath my toes. Solid. Real.

I staggered toward the mirror.

The woman who stared back at me stole the breath from my lungs.

She was me. Younger. Softer around the edges. My dark hair fell loose down my back, glossy and untouched by stress. My skin was unblemished, my eyes bright instead of hollowed by grief and betrayal.

There was no sign of pregnancy. No sign of motherhood. No sign of the woman who had begged for her child with blood on her hands.

I raised a trembling hand and touched my cheek.

The reflection copied me perfectly.

A sob ripped out of my chest, sharp and broken. I clutched the edge of the vanity as my knees threatened to give out.

“I died,” I whispered. “I know I did.”

The memory was too clear. Too brutal. Blake’s voice. The cold burn in my veins. The door closing. Darkness swallowing me whole.

This was not a dream.

Dreams did not feel this cruel.

My gaze dropped to the calendar on the wall.

The date punched the air from my lungs.

Two years before my death.

Two years before the contracts. Before the pregnancy. Before I handed my entire life to a man who fed on trust and called it love.

Time folded in on itself, settling like a verdict.

I was back.

The realization hit slowly at first, then all at once, crashing through me with enough force to make my vision blur. I slid down the vanity and sat on the floor, hugging my knees to my chest as a thousand emotions ripped through me.

Shock.

Grief.

Rage.

My baby.

The pain surged without warning, a fresh wound torn open inside me. My child still existed somewhere in the future I had already lived and lost. Somewhere beyond my reach for now.

But this time, I would not lose her.

I wiped my face with the back of my hand and forced myself to stand. Weakness was a luxury I could no longer afford. Not when fate had given me something so rare it bordered on cruel mercy.

A second chance.

The door to my bedroom opened softly.

“Rosette,” a gentle voice called. “Are you awake, my dear.”

My blood turned to ice.

I knew that voice.

Margaret Jenner, my aunt by marriage and my self appointed guardian after my parents’ deaths. The woman who had smiled at my wedding and signed away her silence when Blake dismantled my life piece by piece.

In my previous life, she had been complicit.

I swallowed hard and turned.

She stood in the doorway, elegant as always, her silver hair styled neatly, her expression warm with practiced affection.

“You were shouting,” she said. “I was worried.”

I looked at her and saw the truth clearly for the first time. Not a protector. Not family. Just another vulture circling the inheritance I had been too naive to guard.

“I am fine,” I replied.

My voice was steady. Too steady.

Her brows lifted slightly. “Are you sure You look pale.”

“I had a bad dream,” I said.

That part was true. I had lived a nightmare and crawled out of its grave.

She smiled and nodded. “Blake will be arriving later today. He asked about you.”

The name slammed into my chest.

Blake.

My hands curled into fists at my sides. Images flashed through my mind, each one sharper than the last. His touch. His lies. His voice as he told me I was never meant to survive.

In my last life, hearing his name had filled me with warmth.

Now it filled me with something cold and lethal.

“That is nice of him,” I said quietly.

Margaret watched me for a moment, her gaze searching my face as if looking for cracks. Finding none, she seemed satisfied.

“Get dressed,” she said. “Breakfast will be served shortly.”

When she left, I locked the door.

Then I leaned against it and closed my eyes.

I let the memories come.

Every betrayal. Every signature I had placed on paper without reading closely enough. Every time I had ignored the tightening in my chest because love demanded faith.

Never again.

I crossed the room and opened the wardrobe. Dresses lined neatly inside, each one chosen to make me look delicate. Approachable. Easy to mold.

I selected a fitted black dress instead, simple and elegant, its cut sharp enough to remind anyone looking that I was not something soft to be handled carelessly.

As I dressed, my mind worked relentlessly.

I knew what was coming. The slow manipulation. The love bombing. The contracts disguised as protection. The pregnancy that would make me vulnerable. The night everything would be taken from me.

Not this time.

This time, I would smile. I would play my role. I would let Blake believe he was winning.

And while he planned my future, I would be rewriting it in blood and ink.

I looked at myself one last time in the mirror, meeting my own gaze with a calm that felt almost frightening.

“You will not break me again,” I whispered.

I straightened my shoulders and walked out of the room.

Downstairs, laughter drifted through the halls, polished and false. The sound of a world that had not yet learned it was already doomed.

Somewhere in the city, powerful men were moving pieces on a board they believed they controlled.

One of them was Cesare Llewellyn.

In my last life, I had underestimated him.

I would not make that mistake twice.

I descended the stairs slowly, my expression composed, my heart armored.

I was no longer the woman who would die begging.

I was the woman who would make them regret ever crossing her.

And this time, I would not stop until every debt was paid in full.