Chapter 1

When I came of age, I was brought back to Ninburton.

By then, my parents already had a perfect daughter. It was my older sister, Isabelle.

Thanks to Isabelle's maneuvering, I ended up with a pretty decent marriage prospect.

That was until her fiancé, Vincent, got expelled by his pack.

However, my fiancé said he was always into Isabelle.

He claimed that if Isabelle hadn't felt sorry for me and talked him into being my fiancé, he wouldn't have spared me a glance.

In my previous life, I was weak and didn't know how to fight back. Everyone forced me, and I gave in.

A black car dropped me off at the estate where Vincent was locked up.

For eight years, Vincent made me balance apples on my head countless times so that he could use me for target practice, and I had close calls with death more times than I could remember.

But when he finally took over the Costellos again, he snatched my ex-fiancé's wife, my sister Isabelle, and married her.

As for me?

I wasn't even worth being his mistress.

This time around, I wasn't going to let anyone push me around again.

*****

This very afternoon in my previous life was when my tragic life began.

"Violet!" Isabelle called out from the end of the hallway.

She pushed the door open, her eyes red and puffy. It was clear that she had been crying. "Vincent, he...

"If you're here to talk about him losing his spot as heir, I already know," I said, toying with the gun in my hand. "So, are you here to tell me you're going to stay with him, Isabelle?"

She froze.

In my previous life, she was here to say, "The marriage alliance with the Costellos can't be canceled, but I really don't want to marry someone who's been cast out."

Then she broke down in tears.

I felt so sorry for her, so I hugged her and cried, too.

I was so naive that I never thought I'd be the one stuck with it.

"How did you know?" Isabelle asked.

I smiled. "You and Vincent have real affection for each other. Now that he's hit rock bottom, there's no way you'd abandon him, right? After all, you're my kindest sister, Isabelle."

Isabelle's face froze for a moment.

That was never what she thought in my previous life.

Back then, she thought about how to dump the marriage on me, slip out without a scratch, and keep up her perfect life as a socialite in Marnoville.

"Violet," she said, grabbing my hand. Her tears fell right on cue. "Mom and Dad want you to take my place."

"You want me to marry Vincent instead of you?" I pulled my hand back, fished a handkerchief from my pocket, and slowly wiped my fingers. "Isabelle, are you willing to let him go?"

"I—" Isabelle said.

"How can you not be willing? You must be over the moon right now, aren't you?" I shot her a cold look as I turned to face her, finishing what she wanted to say.

I stepped back, not wanting to smell that nauseating perfume of hers. "Isabelle, do you know what Vincent says to me whenever he sees me?"

She thought of something, her eyes flickering, but then she shook her head after a moment's hesitation.

I mimicked Vincent's voice, which was disdainful and mean. "He says, 'So you're that wild thing from Gaminboro? What a disgrace to your sister.

"'If you had half of Isabelle's brains and elegance, maybe I'd accept the truth that she has such a sister. But you're only a dumb little duckling.'

"He said all that right in front of you. You heard it, and you knew it. So why act like you didn't? You never tried to stop him, did you?

"Because when he was tearing me down, you felt like you were the favorite, didn't you?"

Isabelle's face went pale.

"You want me to take your place and marry a guy who only hates me because of you," I said, stepping back again. "You want me dead, don't you?"

*****

At dinner, my father brought up the whole marriage thing again.

He used the same excuse as in my previous life, saying that the marriage alliance with the old Alpha of the Costellos couldn't be called off, that Isabelle couldn't marry a loser, and that I had to take her place.

My wiped her tears and mumbled that Isabelle was still too young for all this.

My fiancé, Marcelo Rossini, the youngest heir of the Rossinis, sat at the far end of the table.

He kept his head down, slicing his steak. The metallic scrape of his silver utensils against the plate was loud and grating. He acted as if none of this was related to him.

He didn't care that I, his supposed fiancée, was about to be swapped out for my sister and marry another man.

Seeing me silent, my father shot me a disappointed look and turned to Marcelo. "Marcelo, I'm sorry. We need to switch up the marriage arrangement between us."

Marcelo finally lifted his head, wearing a decent and graceful smile. His eyes were fixed on Isabelle sincerely.

He said, "Of course, I have no objections. It's the obvious thing to do. Isabelle is the brightest jewel in all of Marnoville. She deserves better than to be stuck with a loser."

In my previous life, I completely broke down at the moment.

Back then, I cried, insisting I wouldn't go. My father smashed his glass. My mother gave me a cold, hard stare, and even Isabelle, the sister I always thought was mild and kind, sobbed and forced me.

Marcelo finally looked up at me. That look, which was full of disgust and threat, still haunted me. "Violet, she's your sister. Since you came back, she's always loved and cared for you.

"If it weren't for her begging me, I never would've agreed to marry someone like you, a backwater nobody.

"If you have some sort of conscience, you should show some gratitude, take her place, and marry that failure Vincent instead."

In my previous life, their words shattered me. I broke down in tears and accepted their request.