The office exploded into chaos.

Chloe stumbled back as Axel lunged again, his hands swiping for the recording pen. She twisted away, knocking a crystal decanter to the floor. Sloane came at her from the side, nails raking for her eyes, shrieking. Chloe ducked, shoving Sloane hard into Axel's chest, then bolted for the terrace doors.

They caught up halfway across the marble floor. Axel grabbed her hair, yanking her head back. Sloane clawed at her arm. Chloe kicked and thrashed, but they were two against one, and her body was already failing.

They dragged her toward the open terrace, the night wind blasting through the glass doors. She saw the glittering void below.

"Give me the pen!" Axel roared, pinning her against the railing.

Chloe tightened her grip. Never.

A final shove came from both of them. Her body tipped over the edge, the recording pen still clutched in her fist.

The world spun sideways. Wind screamed past her ears. Below, the glittering lights of Manhattan rushed toward her like a river of knives.

Her stomach dropped, her chest seized—then the first jarring impact against a lower balcony railing split the skin of her shoulder. Pain exploded white-hot through her.

She was falling. She was dying.

The last thought that seared through the blackness was not fear, but a vow written in pure hatred:

If I get another chance, I will make them pay in blood.

She snapped her eyes open.

Then—cold. Not the cold of New York air, but a suffocating, liquid cold that slammed into her lungs.

Her chest convulsed. She couldn't breathe. The taste of river silt filled her mouth, gritty and foul. The memory of impact—a snap in her shoulder, a crack in her ribs—flashed through her as if it were still happening.

She fought. Thrashing, clawing, desperate for air.

Her eyes flew open underwater, stung by grit. Not the concrete and steel of Manhattan. A murky, swirling river surrounded her, filled with silt and broken branches.

Primal instinct took over. She clawed her way upward, arms flailing, until her head broke the surface.

She gasped, choking on frigid air and coughing up mouthfuls of river water.

She was in a fast-moving creek, surrounded by a dense, unfamiliar forest under a darkening sky.

She dragged herself onto the bank, her body shaking uncontrollably from the cold. She touched her face.

Smooth. Unblemished. Not a single trace of the acid burn.

She looked down at her hands. Slender, pale, marked with small scratches. Her hands. Seventeen-year-old hands.

River water ran off her, pooling darkly in the mud. The sky had nearly gone. The shadow of the pines pressed down on her, and the cold made her teeth chatter.

A memory slammed into her.

On the mountain path, Sharon Price's face was twisted with rage. "You're a jinx! You never should have come back to the Clark family!" Before Chloe could react, two hands slammed into her from behind. She screamed as she tumbled down the steep, rocky slope and crashed into the freezing river below

I've been reborn? She couldn't believe it.

But her fingers were trembling. Her face was smooth, the scars gone, her body smaller. She knew this body.

She had been reborn.

The river kept running. The wind moved through the pines, like it was grieving for the her who had died. She stared at her pale fingers, heart pounding. This is real.

She waited for panic, for grief, for anything that might explain it.

Instead, a wild, unsteady laugh tore out of her chest, shaking her whole body.

She wasn't dead.

She had another chance.

That joy quickly hardened into an icy hatred. Axel. Sloane. She mouthed their names, her nails digging so deeply into her palms that they drew blood.

Heaven had given her a second chance, and she would not waste it on foolish love again. She would have her revenge. She would make every single person who had ever hurt her feel a thousand times the pain she had endured.

She pushed herself up from the frozen ground, surveying the dangerous, primitive forest.

Hunger, cold, and the unseen predators lurking in the shadows were her first challenge.

But she was no longer the terrified seventeen-year-old girl. In her previous life, to make herself worthy of Axel, she had studied everything—combat, wilderness survival, emergency first aid... all the skills she thought would help him.

She almost laughed again. All those years of training had been meant to make her the perfect wife.

Now they would make her his perfect nightmare.

Calmly, she tore a strip from the hem of her ruined dress and tied it tightly around the deepest gash on her arm to slow the bleeding.

She checked the sun's position, orienting herself. She recalled the rescue team's route from her first life and began moving toward a ridge where a faint light still lingered.

Night fell quickly in the forest. The temperature plummeted. The wind howled, and the calls of unknown creatures made her skin crawl.

Her body trembled with a primal fear, but her eyes were unnaturally firm.

"I'm back," she whispered to herself. It wasn't a statement. It was a vow written in blood.

A rustling sound from the bushes ahead made her freeze.

She immediately dropped into a crouch, holding her breath. Her fingers closed around a sharp-edged rock on the ground.

The bushes rustled more violently. A dark shape began to emerge.

Chloe's heart hammered against her ribs. She knew this part of Montana had wolves.

A low growl confirmed her fear.

She didn't scream. Countless hours of training in her past life forced the terror down.

Slowly, she backed away, her eyes locked on the threat, scanning for a tree to climb or a crevice to hide in.

Live. She had to live. Revenge could wait for the living.

The darkness thickened, limiting her vision. She had to rely on her hearing and her past-life experience.

She found a pine tree, not too tall but with a thick trunk, and began to climb, her hands and feet scrambling for purchase.

The slick bark and her freezing hands made the ascent agonizingly slow. A piece of bark broke off under her foot, the sound echoing in the quiet woods.

It alerted the creature.

With a sharp howl, not one, but several dark shapes shot out from the undergrowth, circling the small tree she was clinging to.

The green eyes ringed the tree, burning through the dark. Low snarls scraped against the cold air.

Chloe pressed her chest to the trunk, her pulse hammering. Fear would only sharpen their hunger. Stay still. Breathe. Think.

She ripped another strip of fabric from her tattered dress and tied it to a thin branch.

She fumbled in her pockets. Empty. The lighter must have fallen out when she tumbled down the slope.

No fire. Her most effective deterrent was gone.

She didn't give up. Her mind raced, searching for another way.

She broke off a dead branch and hurled it with all her might toward the largest wolf.

It struck the alpha squarely on the nose. The wolf yelped in pain and took a step back, letting out a furious snarl. But the other wolves paused their advance.

Then she caught it—the alpha's left hind leg carried a faint hitch, a near-invisible pause with every stride. Injured.

Chloe's breath steadied. There you are.

She picked up a small stone and threw it hard, aiming at the alpha's head. "Come on, then," she whispered. "Afraid of a girl in a tree?"

Two miles away, on a ridge overlooking the valley, a man in black tactical gear lowered his night-vision scope.

His name was Desmond Montgomery. He was the sole heir to the Montgomery empire—a name that commanded boardrooms in Washington and silent respect in the criminal underworld alike. This mountain range, along with half a dozen others across three states, was his private domain, watched over by a security network that could track a field mouse in a snowstorm.

No intruder had ever made it past the outer perimeter. Until tonight.

He raised the scope again, watching the girl cling to the pine trunk. She wasn't screaming. She wasn't begging.

Interesting.

The corner of his mouth tugged upward. This one fought back.

Desmond watched her hurl another stone at the alpha, deliberately drawing its attention away from the pack. She'd read the dynamics and found the weak link.

She's buying time. And she knows exactly how.

A slow, rare interest stirred behind his cold assessment.

Down below, Chloe's defiance had enraged the pack. They began circling the tree, looking for an opening.

One wolf leaped, its sharp claws gouging deep marks in the bark, less than a foot from Chloe's dangling feet.

A jolt of fear shot through her. She scrambled higher, her energy draining with every move.

She had to find a way out before she froze or her strength gave out completely.

A roar cut through the night—low, resonant, and utterly unlike a wolf's cry. It rolled down from the ridge, heavy as thunder.

The pack froze mid-step. Ears flattened. Tails tucked. They whimpered like beaten dogs.

Chloe's grip tightened on the branch. What the hell was that? It sounded like a big cat, but no mountain lion carried that kind of authority.

The wolves hesitated for a few seconds before retreating, melting back into the dark forest.

The immediate danger was gone. The tension left Chloe's body in a rush, and she nearly slipped from her branch.

A huge, pale shape materialized under the tree. Spotted white fur. Ice-blue eyes fixed on her.

It moved without sound, circling once before sitting back on its haunches with a predator's patience.

A snow leopard. In a Montana pine forest.

Chloe's breath caught. That's not possible. But the animal was real, its stare pressing into her like a physical weight.

She remained frozen on her branch, not daring to move, locked in a standoff with the magnificent beast.

The leopard seemed more curious than hostile. It tilted its head, let out a lazy yawn, and then lay down at the base of the tree, as if it were standing guard.

Chloe was cold, hungry, and at the absolute limit of her endurance. And this animal was blocking her only escape route.

Her arms gave out. The world tilted, blurred, and slipped sideways. Her fingers uncurled, and the branch rushed away from her body.

She hit the ground with a jarring thud, but the pain felt distant, muffled.

Through the narrowing tunnel of her vision, a tall figure emerged from the trees—broad-shouldered, silent as the snow leopard. He was walking toward her.