Chapter 1

In my past life, under the guise of "testing" my boyfriends, my so-called best friend systematically stole my haute couture, hijacked my identity as a wealthy heiress, and seduced every man I ever dated.

It culminated in the ultimate betrayal: she conspired with my fiancé to drug me, broadcast my private photos at my own wedding, and shove me off a rooftop.

She took absolutely everything from me—even murdering my parents by tampering with their gas line to stage a tragic accident.

But fate gave me a second chance.

My eyes snap open. I’m sitting right back in the VIP suite of that lavish restaurant.

My fiancé has just slid the spiked glass of whiskey right toward my hand.

I silently stare at the swirling ice cubes. Instead of picking it up, I raise my hand and casually sweep the heavy glass to the floor.

Crash.

In this life, I am done playing defense.

Since she is so utterly obsessed with stealing my men, I’ll gladly build a magnificent stage for her performance. I'm going to let her claw her way up, let her believe she has finally reached the absolute peak of high society...

Only to personally watch her plunge into the abyss.

————

I plummeted from the rooftop.

My body smashed heavily onto the concrete. Blood surged from my trachea, coating half of my face.

Screams erupted around me.

I forced my eyelids open, staring at the crowd gathering around. Someone covered a child's eyes, someone backed away, and someone frantically dialed for an ambulance.

Pain stretched time into a torturous eternity.

Minutes later, Mia pushed through the onlookers and rushed over. She fell to her knees, large teardrops splashing onto my bruised face as she cried out, "Chloe! Why did you jump?!"

I wanted to speak. I wanted to raise my hand, point at her, and tell all these people that she was the one who pushed me off the edge.

But Mia immediately leaned over, blocking everyone's line of sight.

She pressed her face against my neck, screaming, "Call an ambulance!" while simultaneously clamping her hands over the gaping wound on my abdomen. It looked to the crowd like she was trying to stop the bleeding, but underneath, she was pressing down with excruciating force.

I convulsed violently from the pain, only able to let out a weak gasp.

Mia’s lips brushed against my ear. In a whisper so low only I could hear, she let out a faint laugh.

"Chloe, everything you have is mine now."

Just then, my fiancé, Julian, broke through the crowd.

I reached out to him with the very last ounce of my strength, but he didn't even look at me. Instead, he took off his suit jacket, draped it tenderly over Mia's shoulders, and softly comforted her, "Don't look, Mia. She chose this."

At those words, my heart stopped beating.

But I didn't vanish.

My soul remained anchored there, quietly watching the couple embrace outside the police tape.

This wasn't the first time Mia had stolen a man from my side. She was a friend I had known since childhood.

Growing up, whenever I dated a man, she would do whatever it took to sleep with him. Then, she would brush me off with the exact same excuse: "I'm your best friend. I have to test him for you, to see if he's actually reliable."

To make these "tests" go smoother, she habitually wore my clothes, flaunted my jewelry, and hijacked my identity, claiming to be a corporate heiress. She blatantly told me it was to "help you figure out if they're only after your money."

Julian was the fifth boyfriend she had stolen under the guise of this "loyalty test."

My memory drifted back to just a few days prior.

On our anniversary last weekend, Julian handed me a mixed drink at a restaurant. I lost consciousness shortly after drinking it, waking up the next morning in a filthy bed at some seedy hotel.

On the day of our scheduled wedding, just as the priest opened the vow book, the massive screen above the church altar suddenly lit up, broadcasting explicit photos from that hotel room.

Only then did I realize that Julian had intentionally drugged me that night. While I was completely out of it, Mia had hired several random men to assault me and took those photos.

In front of hundreds of guests, Julian pulled the ring off his finger, threw it hard into my face, and turned to walk off the altar without a word.

A few hours ago, I took the hotel security footage obtained by a private investigator to the rooftop to confront Mia.

She didn't even glance at the evidence. She simply grabbed my shoulders, shoved me backward over the precipice, and left a cleanly printed suicide note in my place.

Now, on the street below, the paramedics loaded my corpse, and the police dispersed the crowd.

Mia pulled a wet wipe out of her designer bag, meticulously wiping the blood off her hands as if my blood was some sort of filth.

"Those two bayfront villas in her name, and all the passwords to her trust fund—they're finally all mine," she murmured.

Julian wrapped his arm around her waist. "You're brilliant. Chloe always believed you were just helping her test me."

Mia let out a mocking laugh. "Her men are so incredibly gullible. As long as I tell them that Chloe sneaks out to clubs every night to hook up with different guys, and casually send over a few photos of myself without underwear, they come crawling faster than dogs."

Hovering in the air, I finally understood.

There was never any loyalty test. She just wanted to steal the life that rightfully belonged to me.

For years, she had spread malicious rumors, fabricating that I had a messy private life, all while sending highly suggestive private photos of herself to these men to seduce them into cheating.

I was forced to tether to Mia’s side as a ghost, watching her systematically take over my life.

She didn't face a single criminal charge.

My parents lost their only daughter and suffered a near-total mental breakdown. Mia deliberately changed into a plain black dress, visiting my parents' house every day to cook soup for them and sit with them in the living room, weeping over my old photos.

Three months later, my mother broke down in tears, hugged Mia tightly, and handed her the spare key to our home.

Another three months passed. Late one night, as she was leaving my house, Mia slipped on a pair of latex gloves, sealed all the ventilation windows shut, and casually yanked out the gas line under the kitchen stove.

In the breaking news the next morning, my parents' deaths were ruled a suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning—driven by the unbearable grief of losing their beloved daughter.

Holding the adoption papers she had manipulated them into signing in advance, Mia, as the sole legal heir, took over the sprawling estate and all my family's corporate shares.

I thought I would have to helplessly watch her strip away my legacy for the rest of eternity. But to my absolute shock, on the day Mia hosted a massive corporate gala to celebrate her ascension, Sebastian appeared.

He was my childhood friend. On the day of my ruined wedding, besides my parents, he was the only person who stood unconditionally by my side. He didn't mock or abandon me; instead, he draped his own coat over my shivering shoulders and safely escorted me away from the chaos.

Over the past few months, he had tracked down the thugs who assaulted me, hacked into Mia's offshore financial network, and incredibly, secured concrete evidence of her murders.

He submitted all those documents to the court and leveraged his entire financial empire to ruthlessly liquidate every asset under their names.

After the judge handed down their sentence, a heavy rain began to fall.

Sebastian came to the cemetery alone.

He didn't bring an umbrella. He walked in the downpour up to the marble headstone engraved with my name, bent down, and quietly placed a bouquet of fresh white roses.

I looked at the black-and-white photo of myself on the tombstone.

There were no tears, nor any screaming hysteria.

I just fiercely stared at the photo, my phantom nails digging so deeply into my palms they could bleed.

Suddenly, the falling raindrops froze in mid-air. The entire view of the cemetery, the rain, and the city skyline shattered like broken glass, violently peeling away from my sight.

A lungful of freezing air suddenly rushed into my chest.

I gasped heavily and snapped my eyes open.

There was no sound of rain, and no marble tombstone.

In my ears played the low, smooth notes of a cello inside a high-end restaurant, and the cool air conditioning brushed against my bare arms.

I was sitting comfortably on the plush sofa of a private VIP dining room.

Sitting directly across from me, Julian was wearing that familiar bespoke suit, a perfectly considerate smile painted on his face.

He picked up a glass of whiskey, the ice clinking softly, and slowly slid it across the polished table right to my hand.

"Why are you spacing out?" he asked with a gentle chuckle. "Drink up, Chloe."