My husband, Liam, died in a car crash during a business trip.

The night before I was supposed to fly home to my parents, his parents served me a bowl of soup.

When I woke up, a man was lying next to me. His clothes were a mess, his skin covered in scratches.

It was my brother-in-law, Evan.

I scrambled to get out of bed, but he grabbed my ankle, yanking me back down. He pinned me beneath him, his breath hot on my skin.

"My brother's dead," he hissed. "You, and everything he owned? You're mine now."

"Give me a son," he continued, his voice dropping to a sick whisper. "A little piece of him to carry on. Do that, and maybe... maybe I'll consider letting you go."

They drugged me with something that left my limbs feeling like lead and locked me in that room.

Night after night of humiliation turned into something else for him. He became obsessed, addicted to my body.

It didn't stop, not even after I was pregnant. Not even after he got engaged to Chloe Lang. He would still sneak into my room every night, a ghost in the dark.

Then Chloe found out.

While Evan was away, she came for me. She dragged me and my unborn child into a bathtub filled with formaldehyde, and we suffocated in the chemical stench. A single coffin for two bodies.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back. Back in that room, on the day it all began.

Evan was leaning over me, his hands tearing at my dress. As his lips came down towards mine, I forced my trembling body still and let my voice drop to a low, chilling whisper.

"I'm barely cold in my grave, and you're already forcing yourself on my wife? Did you ever even respect me, your own brother?"

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1

A crack of lightning lit up the room, illuminating the sheer shock on Evan's face. He stumbled back, collapsing to the floor.

"Liam? No... no, that's impossible. Who are you?!"

The Stone family had deep roots in the old superstitions. They were terrified of ghosts and spirits.

After a moment of paralysis, he lunged at me, trying to pry my mouth open.

"Is this a trick? Are you using some kind of speaker? Jenna, are you trying to fool me with this ghost bullshit?!"

My face was a mask of cold fury. I raised a hand, and he flew backward as if shoved by an invisible force, slamming into the wall three meters away.

Under the dim, flickering light, I stared at him, my eyes unblinking and cold.

"Don't think my death gives you the right to take my place. To claim what's mine. Jenna is your sister-in-law!"

Liam's voice, channeled through me, echoed in the room. "You touch one more hair on her head, and I swear, you'll be dead in three days."

The color drained from Evan's face. His eyes rolled back, and he passed out cold on the floor.

I finally let out a breath, my palm slick with cold sweat.

Within the hour, the rumor had spread through the entire gated community like wildfire.

Liam Stone's ghost had returned. It had possessed his widow.

Our housekeeper, Sarah, kept stealing nervous glances at me, too scared to get close. "Jenna? Or... Mr. Stone? Who... who are you right now?"

I managed a weak smile.

When Liam was alive, I loved mimicking his voice. I’d gotten so good at it that even his own family couldn't always tell the difference. Once, he'd come home wasted after a client dinner, and to keep his parents from worrying, I’d faked an entire cheerful conversation between the two of us from our bedroom. It had sounded completely natural.

The memory of my first life—the cold iron chains on my wrists and ankles in Evan's basement, the agony as Chloe tortured me to death—sent a violent tremor through me.

This time, I would survive.

"It was just a little trick," I told Sarah quietly.

Scaring Evan into leaving me alone was my only shot at freedom. Sarah had always been kind to me. She was the only one in this house I could trust.

"While they're all panicking, you need to do something for me," I whispered urgently. "Call the Vance Corporation in Capital City. Tell my father to come get me."

I am the heiress to the Vance fortune.

Five years ago, I walked away from my family and my inheritance to marry Liam Stone in this small city of Riverton.

We were happy, so incredibly happy, for a few short years. Then came the crash.

I was drowning in grief, and his parents had the nerve to suggest I marry their younger son, Evan, who had just returned from studying abroad.

I refused. Flat out.

The warmth drained from their faces instantly. When seduction didn't work, they turned to threats.

"You were a curse on our eldest son!" his mother had shrieked. "Evan begged us to spare you, and you have the audacity to reject him?"

They forced a drugged soup down my throat and threw me into Evan's room.

When I woke up, my brother-in-law was in my bed, my clothes in tatters.

He held up a will, claiming Liam had left a final request in writing: that I, and the business we had built together, were to be handed over to him.

He played the part of the gentle, grieving brother in public, but in private, he was a monster.

I fought him with everything I had, but it was useless. The physical difference was too great. And then, I was pregnant.

They locked me away in the Stone family's cellar, where I endured the most agonizing days of my life.

It was only before I died that I learned the truth. Liam's "accident" wasn't an accident at all. Evan had planned the whole thing.

But I never hated Liam. He was an innocent victim.

I hate the people who killed him.

Now, tracing the handsome, smiling face of my husband in our wedding photo, tears streamed down my cheeks.

"I swear," I whispered to his picture, "I will make them pay."

Evan’s collapse sent the Stone family into a tailspin.

His mother, a storm of fury, kicked open the villa's front door, her bodyguards trailing behind her. She stormed up to the third-floor bedroom.

I was just waking up, completely defenseless, when she slapped me hard across the face.

Her eyes blazed. The heel of her expensive shoe ground into the floor as if trying to drill a hole through it.

"Jenna! First, you kill one of my sons, and now you're trying to kill the other?!"

"Do you have any idea how many allergies Evan has? What did you give him? He's in the hospital, fighting for his life! Are you happy now?"

She raised her hand to strike me again, but this time I caught her wrist, my grip like iron. "What do you think you're doing?" I snarled.

In all my years with the Stones, I had been quiet, docile. Seeing me fight back stunned her for a second, then her face twisted into a sneer.

"What's the matter? With Liam gone, is there no one left to teach you how to be a proper wife?"

"Did you really think you could just come and go from this family as you please? I told you not to marry him, that you should have listened to me. Now look at the mess you've made. You're the one who suffers."

She rolled up her sleeves, looking down at me with contempt. "You and your assets belong to Evan now. That was Liam's final wish."

"He wrote a will before he died. The company goes to my son, and you—"

She pulled a document from her purse and threw it at my face. "—you go with it."

It was a share transfer agreement.

I let out a cold, sharp laugh, snatched the papers, and ripped them to shreds.

His mother screamed. "Are you insane? Your husband wrote that!"

I stared her down, my mind flashing back to my past life. She had used that same fake will to trick me into accepting Evan.

Back then, I was skeptical, but I couldn't resist Evan's relentless, calculated pursuit. He wooed me, lied to me, slowly breaking down my defenses. I thought he genuinely loved me. I only found out later that it was just a mask he wore to satisfy his twisted desires. That will was a forgery, a tool to keep me from fighting his advances, to make me stay by his side willingly.

He'd promised he wouldn't touch me if I just behaved. But then he drugged me, tore my clothes, and by the time I was clear-headed again, it was already too late.

The memory made my fists clench. I wanted to kill them both.

Seeing her threats weren't working, she flew into a rage and ordered her bodyguards forward. "Teach her a lesson!"

"Wait!" I yelled, my voice ringing with authority. "Liam came to me in a dream last night! He told me who really killed him. It was Evan!"

The bodyguards froze, exchanging uncertain looks.

His mother’s face went pale. "Nonsense!" she shrieked. "Liam died in an accident!"

I smiled. "Yes, an accident. But the killer is about to face justice."

Her face cycled through shock and rage. "Jenna, you have some nerve! You, an orphan, killed my son, couldn't even give him a child, and now you're trying to turn us against each other?"

"Since you won't sign the papers, don't blame me for what comes next. From this day on, Evan is in charge of you and everything you own. If you don't cooperate, I have a thousand ways to make your life a living hell."

She signaled for the guards to surround me, to tie me up. I finally played my last card.

"I am a Lin!" I shouted. "The daughter of the Vance family! You can't treat me like this!"

His mother burst out laughing. "The Vance family? You mean your long-lost father who probably sells hot dogs on a street corner?"

A few of the guards snickered along with her. Only one woman standing beside my mother-in-law seemed to frown.

"What are you laughing at?" she snapped at them. "Everyone knows Jenna is an orphan with no family and no one to back her up. What power could she possibly have?"

I lowered my hands, saying nothing more.

To marry Liam, I had been willing to cut ties with my family.

They had no idea that the newly appointed mayor of H-City was my aunt.