Only The Beginning

Riya's POV

It had been three weeks since Kelvin was arrested for trying to cut me open.

Three weeks, and he was already free.

The police had no choice. On paper, I had signed a consent form, complete with my signature and my handprint, agreeing to donate my bone marrow to a "dying friend." The hospital swore that I had signed willingly. My lawyer swore the document was forged. In the end, the judge threw up his hands and called it insufficient evidence.

The only thing I had managed to win was a restraining order. Kelvin was not allowed within ten feet of me, which felt like a very thin wall between me and a man who had already tried to carve me up once.

It bought me breathing room, at least. Room to think about what I would do to Hannah.

I pushed through the glass doors of the Rutherfurd Group's headquarters with dark circles under my eyes and a plain gray dress that I had thrown on without thinking. Every night since the hospital, I had woken with a scream trapped in my throat, tangled in my sheets, my mind replaying the sound of a truck's horn, the ring of an unanswered phone, two voices laughing behind a bedroom door. The past clung to me like smoke.

Mateo had asked me to come in today to sign the partnership papers. I just had to get past the front desk.

"Good morning. I'm here to see Mateo," I told the receptionist, as pleasantly as my tired face could manage. "Would you let him know Riya has arrived?"

She looked me up and down, from my worn flats to my unstyled hair, and her lip curled. "How dare you speak about Mr. Rutherfurd so casually. Who do you think you are?"

I sighed. My simple clothes had clearly made her file me under girls who hang around hoping to be noticed by the boss.

"Once you tell him my name, I think you'll find out."

She rolled her eyes. "Mr. Rutherfurd wouldn't allow you within two inches of him, let alone remember your name. Please step aside. I've dealt with enough of your type for one day."

I could have been patient. In my first life, I would have been. But I had died once already, and I had no remaining interest in being walked on by anyone. "Is this how your company treats its visitors?" I asked, pulling out my phone. Mateo's number rang and rang, then went to voicemail. A meeting, probably.

Then I saw a familiar figure glide across the lobby, and the phone almost slipped from my hand.

Lily?

Lily Hunt, in a cream-colored dress with her auburn curls piled high. I knew that face from the news. In my first life, I had watched a report about the plane crash that killed her, a few weeks after a dramatic argument with Mateo. She had been dead for years by the time I died.

And yet here she stood, perfectly alive, tapping her pass on the reader as if she owned the place.

"Is Mateo in?" she asked the receptionist in a soft voice.

The receptionist practically bowed. "Yes, Miss Hunt. Go right up."

"Hey." I stepped in front of her. "I was here first. You told me I couldn't go up, and then you wave her through? If you can't do your job properly, why take it?"

The receptionist went red. "Do you know who this is..."

"Well, well." Lily's voice slid over the receptionist's, cool and sweet and edged with something nasty. "If it isn't the abandoned Riya. Did all that extra weight finally scare your husband off?"

I frowned. I couldn't remember ever having a real conversation with Lily Hunt in my life, not in this one or the last. So why did it feel like she'd hated me for years?

"Abandoned?" I crossed my arms. "You've been reading the news with the back of your head. I'm the one who walked away. And for the record, I happen to like my curves."

Her fists tightened at her sides. "Whatever. Excuse me." She tried to step around me, and I moved to block her.

"No one's going anywhere until I'm taken care of," I said, loud enough for the whole lobby to hear.

The receptionist rushed over to separate us. "Miss, I'm warning you. Don't offend Mr. Rutherfurd by making a scene."

I laughed. I couldn't help it. "Offend Mr. Rutherfurd? By stopping his ex-fiancée?"

"Ex?" Lily's voice rose to a shriek. "I'm Mateo's fiancée, whether you like it or not!"

Heads turned all over the lobby. Beneath the hot flush of my anger, a cold thought crept in. Lily had died in my first life. Now she was alive, and furious, and claiming Mateo as hers. Maybe the changes I had made in this life were rippling outward, rewriting people I had never touched.

"Funny," I said. "For someone so sure of her place, you sound awfully worried. He doesn't even like you."

That landed. She lunged at me, and two guards caught her by the arms just in time. And in that moment of chaos, a new voice rang out behind me, sweet as spoiled honey.

"Well! Now you're a fiancé snatcher too? How very you."

Hannah.

She stood by the doors in a perfectly tailored white dress, looking pale and lovely, a pastry box in her hand. Not a sign of illness anywhere. The old Hannah would have run to hug her.

"I don't remember inviting you," I said.

"Oh, I wouldn't miss this." Her smile was a little too bright. "Even though you refused to give me your bone marrow, I'm still here, aren't I? I'm sorry to disappoint you."

She was stalling for something, her eyes sliding toward the elevators. Why?

"Funny," I said, "how well you look for a woman who was supposedly dying. I'm glad I didn't have to hand over a single drop. I'd rather see you dead."

"Wait." Lily's voice cut in, bewildered. "I thought you two were best friends."

Hannah's smile faltered. She stepped closer, blocking my path. "Don't listen to her. She's only upset because she ran out of options. First she dumped her husband, then she crawled to someone else's fiancé for money and power. Honestly, doesn't she feel ashamed?"

My palm cracked across her cheek before I had decided to move.

The sound echoed through the lobby. Hannah staggered back, her hand pressed to her face, eyes wide with shock.

"Ashamed?" I said quietly. "That's rich, coming from a woman who sleeps with her best friend's husband."

The color left her face, not because I'd said it, but because I'd said it so soon. She had no idea how I had found out.

"That's a lie," she whispered. "I don't know what you're talking about."

I almost felt sorry for her. Almost. All my life, I had walked beside wolves in sheep's clothing, calling them family.

I took out my phone. After the wedding, Daniel had pulled the footage from the hotel's elevator camera, the angle that showed her face. I held up the screen so she could see herself kissing my fiancé in the mirrored doors, so Lily could see her, and so the entire lobby could.

"Riya, this is a misunderstanding," Hannah stammered. "I was just..."

"I'm not interested in anything you have to say," I said, and turned my back on her.

I turned to Lily, who was staring at the screen in stunned silence. "You might want to close your mouth. It's catching flies."

Color flooded her face. "You think you're so clever. Mateo will never look at you."

"He already did." I let a slow smile spread across my face. "He's the one who helped me move on from a cheating husband and a traitorous best friend. And if you keep clinging to him like a limpet, Lily, he'll never look at you either. Because he's going to be mine."

I said the last word clearly, so she'd hear every letter.

Lily's eyes went wild. "Someone!" she screamed. "Throw her out of here! Right now!"

The guards looked at each other, torn, and then stepped toward me. I backed away, my pulse quickening, my hand closing on my phone.

Fine. If I'm going out, I'm going out swinging.

Then a voice rolled through the lobby, quiet and absolutely deadly, and every sound in the room died.

"Who dares touch her?"