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.