Chapter 3

"Nina! How dare you!" Any trace of restraint vanished from Samuel's face, and his handsome features twisted into something ugly with rage, the veins at his temples throbbing wildly.

He charged at me, his hand closing around my throat as he slammed me back against the freezing wall.

A dull thud echoed through the room as my back collided with the wall, the impact jarring every bone in my body and rattling my insides.

The suffocating pressure closed around my throat in an instant, but I could barely feel the pain, not when compared to the despair of my heart stopping in my previous life.

Compared to that, this was nothing.

"That blood was meant to save Lily's life! You're committing murder! Do you believe me that I could kill you right now?" he roared, his eyes burning red as his fingers tightened relentlessly around my neck.

I could feel my windpipe compressing and the air growing thinner with every passing second.

In my past life, I would have already been sobbing and begging for forgiveness by now, explaining that I only wanted him to spare me a single glance, that I wasn't feeling well.

But now, I simply stared at him with cold indifference, the way one might look at a pathetic clown.

"Murder?" I forced the word out through my constricted throat, my face flushed crimson from lack of oxygen, yet somehow still managing to curl my lips into a bitter, mocking smile.

"Samuel, if withholding my blood counts as murder, then what do you call keeping me penned up like livestock for five years, feeding me just so you can drain me for Lily? Is that assault? Or false imprisonment?"

His grip faltered for just a moment, a flicker of uncertainty passing through his eyes.

And in that brief window of loosened hold, I drove my knee upward with every ounce of strength I had, aiming straight for the most vulnerable spot between his legs.

Samuel let out a muffled groan and was forced to release me, doubling over in pain as his face turned a deep shade of red.

I stood there gasping for air, steadying myself against the wall, and calmly straightened my disheveled collar, my eyes as cold as ice as I looked down at the man I had once loved more than life itself, now curled up on the floor like a wounded shrimp.

"Samuel, I want a divorce." Those were words I had kept buried inside me for two lifetimes, and the moment I finally spoke them aloud, I felt some long-forged shackle deep within my soul break loose with a soundless snap.

Samuel managed to catch his breath and push himself upright against the wall, then looked at me as if I had just started speaking nonsense. "What did you just say? Divorce? Nina, have you lost your mind?

"If you leave me, what exactly do you think is going to keep Grant Holdings from going under? And what about your brother, the one lying in that hospital bed like a vegetable? What's going to keep his ventilator running?"

That was the same old story, using my family as leverage, a trick he had pulled for seven years, and it had worked like a charm every single time.

But not in this life, because this time I already knew how the whole script played out.

Grant Holdings had never actually been on the verge of bankruptcy; that whole crisis was a lie Samuel had cooked up with the CFO he had bribed, designed to make me feel trapped and desperate enough to depend on him as his obedient little puppet.

And my brother's accident had been Lily's doing from start to finish, every last detail of it.

"You don't need to worry about that." I reached into my bag and pulled out the voice recorder I had bought the moment I came back to this life, my very first stop on the way to the hospital.

I pressed play. After a brief crackle of static, Samuel's voice came through, clear as day, carrying that casual tone of cold calculation I had come to know all too well.

The CFO's voice followed. "Relax, Mr. Hart. That clueless idiot Nina won't be able to make heads or tails of the financial reports. All we have to do is make this shortfall look real and make it seem like the company can't cover its debts.

"And she'll fall right in line, giving Ms. Lane her blood just to save Grant Holdings. And as for her brother and that ventilator of his? Whether it stays plugged in or not is entirely up to Ms. Lane."