Chapter 1
With an innocent smile, the fake heiress said, "Sorry, Emily," before shoving me off the rooftop.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back in my baby years, witnessing with my own eyes as the nurse swapped me with the imposter heiress.
And standing right there, wide awake, was my birth mother.
That's when it hit me. She had come back to life, too.
It turned out that all the pain from my last life had been her doing all along.
This time, I would make them watch.
I would show them how the weed they trampled into the mud could rise again and tear down the whole garden.
*****
Pain was the last thing I felt.
The moment my body hit the ground, I heard the sharp crack of my bones shattering. Above me, Charlotte stood at the edge of the rooftop, her face twisted in victory as she smirked down at me.
"Sorry, Emily," Charlotte cooed in that sickly sweet voice of hers.
"But Mom says there's room for just one daughter in the Sinclair family."
Darkness swallowed me whole.
I thought that was the end.
But then, blinding lights flooded my eyes. Instinctively, I tried to lift my hand to block it, only to find my arms were tiny and powerless, wrapped tightly in a soft baby blanket.
"Mother of bed seven, Vivian Lancaster. You have a healthy baby girl, and she is 7.5 pounds," a nurse said above me.
I couldn't believe it.
I had actually gone back to the very moment I was born!
Before I could even process what was happening, the nurse was already carrying me out of the delivery room.
Peeking through a tiny gap in my blanket, I caught a glimpse of a face—familiar yet distant.
She was my birth mother, Vivian Lancaster.
In my last life, I didn't learn I'd been switched at birth until I turned eighteen.
When I finally found my birth parents, what awaited me wasn't the loving family I'd dreamed of, but Charlotte's ruthless exclusion and Vivian's coldness.
In the end, Charlotte pushed me off the Sinclair Corporation building and ended my short, miserable life.
Vivian lay on the delivery bed, pale but fully conscious.
Her gaze followed the nurse carrying me, her expression too complicated to read.
"Wait," she suddenly called out, her voice weak but firm.
The nurse stopped. "Mrs. Sinclair, do you need something?"
Vivian's gaze slid past me to another bassinet in the corner of the delivery room. "That baby... She's from bed eight, right? May I take a look?"
My heart sank.
There was no doubt about it that bed eight could only mean Charlotte.
The nurse hesitated and said, "That's against hospital policy..."
"I just want to see her." Vivian managed a weary smile. "My husband always wished we'd had twin girls."
The nurse eventually gave in and placed me and Charlotte side by side before Vivian.
I tried to cry out, to make her notice me, but all I could manage was a faint whimper.
Vivian's eyes moved between us before finally settling on Charlotte.
I saw a flash of tenderness in them—the same look she had always given Charlotte in my last life.
"They look so alike," Vivian murmured, brushing her fingers gently across Charlotte's tiny face.
Just then, chaos broke out in the hallway outside the delivery room. Someone was shouting for a nurse.
The nurse cradling me rushed to put us back into our bassinets. "Mrs. Sinclair, I'll be right back."
As soon as she left, Vivian sat up, far too quickly for someone who had just given birth.
She stared at me and Charlotte, and there was something almost uncanny flickering in her eyes.
"I really have come back to life," Vivian whispered. Her voice was so low it was almost a breath.
But in my ears, it sounded like a thunderclap. "This time, I'll make sure Charlotte is safe," Vivian vowed.
My blood ran cold.
Vivian had come back to life, too.
She deftly switched the wristbands on me and Charlotte, as if she'd done it a hundred times before.
Then she hit the call button, lay back down, and put on her whole tired-new-mom act again.
The nurse rushed back in. "Mrs. Sinclair?"
"I feel a little dizzy," Vivian said faintly. "Could you call the doctor for me? And my husband should be here any minute. Please tell him our daughter's perfectly healthy."
The nurse nodded and left, not noticing the wristbands had been switched.
I could only watch as fate dragged me straight into hell all over again.
Vivian had switched me and Charlotte on purpose.
Even after getting a second chance at life, she still chose her.