Lahat ng Kabanata ng Reborn Before They Could Destroy Me: Kabanata 1 - Kabanata 7

THE FUTURE THAT WASN'T MINEMy hand froze on the door handle.Voices. Low. Urgent. Coming from the study I never entered without knocking.I pressed closer."…once the shares transfer, it's done. She won't even see it coming."Chloe's voice. Soft. Sweet. The same tone she used when she asked me for money last week.A man's reply followed. Familiar. Too familiar."I'll keep her distracted until the papers are signed. After that, the company is yours."Ethan. My fiancé.I didn't breathe. Didn't move. Just stood there while the words carved into me.Chloe laughed quietly. "You're sure she still trusts you?""Completely. She always has."The door opened before I could step back.Chloe stood there in a silk robe, eyes wide with practiced surprise. Ethan stood behind her, shirt half-buttoned, phone still in his hand.For one second no one spoke.Then Chloe smiled. "Ariana. You're home early."My voice came out flat. "What shares?"Ethan stepped forward, already reaching for me. "Baby, it's

SMILE, SISTERMorning light cut across the hospital room.I had not slept.Chloe was still in the chair, head tilted against the wall, breathing evenly. The picture of exhausted devotion. Exactly the way she had sat the night after my mother's funeral years ago—when I still believed every soft word she said.I watched her for a long minute.In the weak hospital light, she looked almost innocent. Her face was softer than it would become in the years ahead, unmarked by the greed I now knew lived behind those eyes. Her hand rested on her lap, perfectly manicured, the nails still the pale pink she preferred before the bolder reds came later. This was Chloe before the transformation—before the affair, before the theft, before the calculated destruction.But she was still her. Still calculating. Still hunting.I tested the first memory.In the future I had seen, Chloe always ordered the same breakfast when she stayed overnight at the hospital with me: black coffee, no sugar, and a single p

CHAPTER 5 — THIS TIME, I MOVE FIRSTI didn't sleep that night either.Ethan left after dinner with another soft kiss and a promise to call in the morning. The second the door closed I locked it, pulled every curtain, and opened my laptop with hands that wouldn't stop shaking.Next week.They were moving next week.I refused to wait for the attack.The first piece of inheritance I needed to protect was the Laurent Family Trust—specifically the block of voting shares my mother had left me under a delayed-release clause. She had written that clause carefully, with love and foresight, never imagining her own daughter would betray me. In the original timeline Chloe's mother had found a legal gap in the language and forced an early review. By the time I understood what was happening, the shares had already been frozen and then redirected into accounts I could no longer touch.That would not happen again.I called the only lawyer I still trusted—the one who had handled my mother's estate and

ETHAN’S HANDSEthan was waiting in my living room when I got home.He stood the moment I opened the door, like he’d been sitting there rehearsing the moment. His shirt was slightly wrinkled. His eyes looked tired in a way that used to make me soften.“I called you four times,” he said.“I saw.”I set my bag down and walked past him toward the kitchen. He followed.“Your father said you left dinner early. Are you feeling sick again?”“No.”He stopped behind me while I poured water. Close enough that I could feel the heat of his body. The same way he used to stand when he wanted something without asking for it yet.“I miss you,” he said quietly.I turned around, glass in hand.He was already looking at me the old way. Soft mouth. Warm eyes. The expression that used to make me believe I was safe with him.“I’ve been giving you space,” he continued. “After the hospital… and the rumors. But I don’t want space anymore.”He stepped closer.His hand lifted and brushed a strand of hair behind