The day I died, the baby in my womb was only five months old.

In that final phone call, my father, John Harlow, the godfather of the Harlow family, spoke with a voice as icy as a loaded gun.

"A married woman belongs to her husband's family, even in death."

When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day I had been placed under house arrest.

He was circling my college application with a red pen. "Girls who study art are easier to marry off."

In front of him, I tore the family's marriage alliance files into pieces.

"I'm going to Camford University. I'm studying Computer Science."

He sprang to his feet so suddenly that his finger nearly jabbed my face, his sleeve cuff revealing the family crest tattoo.

"If you dare defy me, don't ever regard me as godfather."

I smiled.

"Exactly what I want."

Meeting his stunned gaze, I spoke each word deliberately. "The name Harlow. I have long stopped wanting it."

Bennett's boot crashed into my head, and for a moment, my heart just stopped. Cradling my belly, I reached for the phone, my fingers slick with blood, and punched in the number I could dial in my sleep.

"Harriet? Did you set Bennett off again?" my mother's voice was a whisper of worry.

"Mom! Help me! Bennett's going to kill me!" I could barely get the words out, my voice shaking.

Silence stretched on the other end before my father's voice broke through, harsh and impatient, "Keep your family drama to yourself!"

"However, I'm bleeding, and the baby!" I choked on my tears.

"That baby is the heir!" he exploded, his anger palpable even through the phone. "You can't even protect an heir, you deserve what you get! You brought this on yourself when you refused that arranged marriage; Bennett's just teaching you a lesson!"

I gripped the phone tighter, blood and tears mingling as they dripped down my chin.

Before the line went dead, I heard him dismiss me to my mother, "Hang it up. She's Marshall's problem now, dead or alive."

The dial tone was the last thing I heard before everything went black.

When I opened my eyes again, I was staring at the family crest on the calendar on the wall.

I was back, back to that pivotal day when my father was playing matchmaker, deciding my future.

That day in my previous life, I was bullied into tears and into Bennett's arms by the threat of being disowned.

Four years of submission followed, ending with my life as the final price.

However, now, as I watched my father pore over those same marriage documents, my heart was racing, not with fear, but with the wild thrill of a second chance. Hope and life were mine again.

"Bennett's a catch!" my father's voice was closing in, full of approval. "Loyal, efficient, ambitious, he'll secure our family's future."

He paused at my bedroom door, eyeing me like I was just another item on his inventory list: "Forget about computer science or finance, those are men's fields. Who'd want to marry a woman who dabbles in that? You should study art history at Columbine. Don't worry, I've already scoped out your future husband."

My grip tightened around my pen, but I kept quiet. I already died once before, and then his lectures sounded like a bad joke.

"Are you listening?" His voice grew heavy with authority. "I'm thinking of our family's future here! Your cousin listened, went to that fancy school, and now she has children, and her husband's got a big stake in the local docks. She's living a good life. And you? Always dreaming too big!"

He was working himself up, using "for the family's future" like it was his ultimate weapon.

Mom, Emma, peeked out from the kitchen, a wet rag in hand, murmuring her support: "Harriet, listen to your dad. He's only looking out for you."

That line was on repeat for eighteen years. In my previous life, it shackled me.

"Mom," I cut in sharply, "do you really think Dad's always right?"

She froze, her eyes darting to Dad like a kid caught in a mistake.

Dad scoffed: "What does she know? A woman's place is to follow orders. This family would've crumbled without me!"

Mom quickly looked down. "Right, I don't get it. Dad's word is law."

What a team they made: one to lay down the law, the other to coax compliance.

I turned away, sizing up the man on the couch.

He sat there, belly out, snipping at his cigar, looking every bit the godfather.

His gaze on me was like I was just another commodity.

"Dad," I said quietly, "are you pushing me toward art just to trade me off at a higher price?"

The cigar cutter hit the coffee table with a loud smack as he shot up, his face shaking with anger. "What did you just say?"

I stood tall, my words deliberate. "I'm not going to be part of any arranged marriage. I'm applying for computer science at Camford University. I'm living for me, not for deals or expectations."

The room went still, as if the air itself turned to ice.

The storm hit without warning, fierce and sudden.

"This is an outrage!" Dad's hand crashed down on the table, scattering cigar ash. "What did you say?"

"I said, Camford University's Computer Science Department," I repeated, my voice steady.

"A girl in computer science? Look around, has our family ever had a woman programmer?"

He stormed over, his tattooed hand striking the back of my head. "You were meant to marry well, not waste time on computers!"

The pain was nothing compared to what I endured in my previous life, but it was enough to resurrect old fears.

I flinched.

He saw it and scoffed, "Scared? Then straighten up!"

He thought I was still the same, scared of pain, scared of his words, scared of being cut off financially.

However, he did not realize that someone who's faced death is not scared of much.

"Listen to me," he jabbed a finger at my nose, his cigar smoke clouding my face, "cross the family, and you can forget about me as your godfather. You won't see a dime of your allowance. Let's see how you manage without us."

Mom tried to intervene. "John, calm down. Harriet's just a kid, she doesn't get it."

He shoved her aside so hard she stumbled into the table, wincing in pain but keeping quiet.

"She doesn't get it? She's eighteen! It's those no-good boys she's hanging out with that have corrupted her!"

He turned that piercing stare on me. "A girl out past eight, who knows what kind of trouble she's getting into? Thinking of leaving for Engleton, are you? Feeling independent?"

I heard it all before, in my previous life.

I remembered a night before high school, staying out late for a tutoring session. A boy from class wanted to borrow my notes, and we chatted for five minutes by the manor gate.

Somehow, my father's Underboss saw us and could not wait to report back.

Dad came out of nowhere, his slap sending me reeling. "Sneaking around with boys in the middle of the night, you're shaming our whole family!"

He dumped out my Chanel bag, ripped up my notes, grabbed my phone, and when he saw a 'thanks' text from a guy, he nearly crushed it.

Mom tried to stop him, "John, that's enough, we've got the Marshalls to meet at month's end."

"Heart's gone wild, meeting anyone is just dragging our name through the mud! Staying out late, who's to say you haven't been with someone else?"

That night, I was forced to stand at the manor's gate until 2 AM.

He lounged on the leather couch, watching the game, the remote clicking against the armrest. "This punishment's to remind you, a Harlow lady out past eight is no better than a streetwalker."

Feet dead from standing, I clenched my teeth, tears hitting the floor, keeping my sobs silent.

"It's not about rebellion," I met his gaze, "I want to live my own life."

He paused, not getting it.

"Dad, I'm a person too, not just a family pawn."

I got up, tearing up the marriage plans he made, "I'm heading to Camford University, and I'll handle the costs without family help."

He shook with anger, slamming a gun on the table. "Think you're smart? Let's see if you last three days without our name to back you!"

Mom came running, begging, "Harriet, please, he's your father! He wants you to study art, find a good husband, it's all for you."

"Mom," I faced her, "remember how Aunt died?"

She froze.

"Aunt killed herself, depressed from Uncle's abuse. You watched her suffer, always said you'd leave if it happened to you. What's changed? Aren't you just like her now?"

She tried to speak, but no words came.

The rag thudded against the floor as she let out a piercing scream, "You think I don't want to get out of here? I had you at seventeen, with no connections, no clout. Where would I go? Live on the streets? Your aunt hung herself, you expect me to end up like that?"

She charged at me, jabbing her nail into my forehead, her face a mess of tears and snot, "Think education's gonna change anything? In your dreams! You're gonna end up just like your father and me, no way out!

"Why do you get to soar? If you stay grounded, it hurts less!"

Her words cut deep.

Turns out, it was not my dad she hated, it was me, for even thinking I could escape the hell she was stuck in.

Back in my room, I leaned against the door that I locked tight, listening to him bellowing into the phone out on the balcony.

He was laying down the law to my teacher, insisting my college choices had to be his choices!

"A girl in computer science? That'd be a laughing stock for the Harlows! Yeah, I'm the one who calls the shots here!"

I let out an icy laugh.

The head of this family? Not my head, not anymore.

At 2 a.m., I fashioned a rope out of bed sheets and shimmied down from my second-story window.

My ankle twisted on impact, a sharp jolt of pain shooting through me, but I bit down hard and hobbled through the darkness to a private clinic.

The night-shift doctor eyed my ballooning ankle, "What happened here?"

"Family discipline.

"I need a damage report, and make it quick," I demanded.

By 4 a.m., I had it in hand, a medical report with the hospital's official stamp: torn ankle ligaments, two weeks off my feet.

If push came to shove, that piece of paper was my ticket to showing the world just how the Harlow family's so-called godfather treated his Principessa.

No 'godfather' wants his dirty laundry aired.

I snuck back in through the window as dawn was breaking.

Nine a.m. was the school's cutoff.

Dad strutted out with the family decree, freshly printed, with just one choice for me: Columbine Art History.

"Come on, we're going to the family lawyer to make it official, and then you'll do as I say, marry into the Marshall family after you graduate!" he ordered.

I did not budge from my seat.

"Are you defying me?" he advanced, reaching to drag me up.

I shrugged him off and pulled out the real application form from my backpack, the one I printed in secret last night. It read "Camford University, Computer Science Department."

His eyes widened in shock, his hand lunging to rip the paper.

I stepped back, my voice icy, "Tear it if you want. I've got ten more copies, and one in the cloud."

He stopped dead, looking at me like I was a stranger.

"And one more thing," I said, slapping a medical report on the table, "Mr. Harlow, if you keep trying to control me and threaten me with violence, I'll go public with this. You don't want the world to find out that the Harlow family's Principessa has to be bullied into marriage, do you?"

He just stared at the report, his hands shaking.

I never saw him like that: scared, angry, in disbelief, and even a bit afraid.

Turns out, he was not invincible. He was scared of losing face.

Mom came running, begging, "Harriet, please, he's your father! He's only trying to set you up for the future. Even if he's a bit rough around the edges, it's all for you!"

"Mom," I faced her, "whose side are you on? Mine or the family's?"

She hesitated for three long seconds.

Those seconds shattered my last hope.

"I'm with your father," she whispered, "he's the head of this family."

"Alright," I nodded, "you stick with him. I'll be the black sheep."

I grabbed the application form and hobbled out the front gate.

Their shouts and sobs chased after me, but I was done looking back.

That house, their version of 'it's for your own good', I was leaving it all behind.

The moment I left the manor behind, my phone buzzed, a coded message from James, our family's tutor.

"Harriet, your dad's on the warpath. He's threatened to erase me from Norchester if I don't sway you to his way of thinking: change your college choice, agree to a strategic marriage. He's even rallied the Blood Oath Brotherhood in Engleton against you, to teach you the price of defiance."

My fingers clenched around the phone until they turned pale.

That was his master stroke.

I thought I broke free, but he was spinning a new web all along.

What was waiting for me in Engleton?