Reborn to Watch My Fiancé's Family Burn

In my first life, my fiancé helped his sister frame me for a fatal hit-and-run.

I went to prison, my mother died begging for my freedom, and the lawyer who tried to save me lost everything.

When I woke up on the afternoon of the crash, I didn't run from the police.

I made sure they arrested me first.

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I waited in the underground garage until my neighbor began backing into the space beside mine.

Then I stepped forward and swung my tequila bottle into her taillight.

Glass cracked. She slammed on the brakes and jumped out of her SUV.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

I took another drink and set the bottle on the hood of my Porsche where every security camera could see it.

"Call the cops."

Her anger faltered. "Are you serious?"

"Completely. Tell them I damaged your car and threatened to do worse."

That did it. She called 911 while two residents near the elevator raised their phones to record us.

Good.

The more witnesses, the better.

Ten minutes later, two LAPD officers entered the garage with their body cameras running. I kept my hands visible and admitted exactly what I had done. I hadn't driven. I hadn't threatened anyone with the bottle. The taillight cost less than a designer handbag, but deliberate vandalism committed in front of half the building was enough to put me in handcuffs.

As an officer guided me toward the cruiser, my neighbor stared.

"Why are you smiling?"

Because at 8:45 that night, my white Porsche would kill a college student on Sunset Boulevard.

And this time, I would be inside a police station when it happened.

At booking, I answered every question clearly. A breath test showed I had been drinking, but every camera and witness confirmed I had never moved my car. The watch commander approved a misdemeanor booking and ordered that I remain under observation until I was sober.

My purse, jewelry, phone, apartment keys, and primary Porsche fob went into a clear property bag. So did the current prescription bottle I carried every day. The clerk sealed the bag, logged its number, and placed it in secured storage.

I watched every step.

In my first life, that prescription had destroyed me.

This time, it would save me.

Footsteps rushed across the lobby.

"Chloe!"

My mother reached me first. She wrapped both arms around me through the gap beside the booking desk, warm and alive and furious.

For one dangerous second, I nearly told her everything.

In the life I remembered, she had stood outside courthouse doors begging reporters to listen. Her heart had failed before my first appeal. I had never gotten to say goodbye.

Now her hand was cupping my cheek.

"What were you thinking?" she demanded. "You broke a woman's taillight and waited to be arrested?"

Noah stood behind her in a charcoal suit, his tie crooked from the rush. He had handled my family's legal work for years, but he had never looked at me like a client. Not when it mattered.

In my first life, he had broken rules trying to uncover the frame. He lost his license, then nearly went to prison himself.

"I've arranged bond," he said. "Once you're medically cleared, I can get you home."

"No."

He studied me. "No?"

"I want to stay until arraignment."

My mother gripped the counter. "Why would you do that?"

Because Ethan Vale had once held my face between his hands and told me that without an alibi, I was finished.

Because his sister, Sloane, still had the factory spare fob she had borrowed months ago and never returned.

Because an expired bottle with my name on it was sitting on my coffee table, waiting for Ethan to steal it.

I couldn't explain any of that without sounding insane.

"I did something stupid," I said. "Let me deal with it. Please go home."

Noah's expression hardened. "This isn't about a taillight."

"It is tonight."

He heard the warning in my voice. After a long silence, he told the bondsman not to post the scheduled bond and made the desk officer confirm that I could reconsider later.

My mother kissed my forehead before she left.

"Call me the second they let you."

I held her hand until an officer led me away.

At 7:12 p.m., they placed me in a monitored holding cell. At 8:00, a nurse documented that I was alert, cooperative, and sobering normally. At 8:45, I sat beneath a camera bolted above the cell door and listened to the clock tick.

Somewhere across Los Angeles, Sloane was taking my Porsche down Sunset.

In my first life, she had been high. She struck a twenty-one-year-old valet crossing between two parked cars and kept driving.

Ethan had protected her by turning me into the driver.

This time, the police had my fob, my medication, my blood test, my booking record, and hours of video.

Let them try.