Chapter 2

Alyce floated twenty feet above the intersection, the cold rain passing straight through her translucent hands. Below her, her mangled body lay twisted in a widening pool of red.

Suddenly, five heavy black Escalades tore through the rain and screeched to a halt outside the police tape. A bodyguard snapped open a black umbrella over the rear door of the armored Maybach, and a custom matte-black wheelchair lowered onto the asphalt via a hydraulic lift. Flanked by eight imposing guards sat a man clad in a pitch-black three-piece suit—Barclay Reid, the ruthless CEO of the Reid conglomerate and absolute ruler of Wall Street's oldest dynasty.

In her past life, that name had been a living nightmare.The crash that crippled his legs had twisted his mind into something cruel—a cold-blooded tyrant who tortured those who crossed him. Ever since she was dragged back from the slums, Charisse had poisoned her ears daily: "That crippled monster is a savage! If you marry him, he'll torture you to death! Mom and Dad only adopted you back to use you as a human shield against his wrath!" With her emotionally distant parents turning a blind eye, the timid, affection-starved Alyce had fallen into absolute despair.

Yet, looking down from above at this very moment, Alyce saw the truth.

Barclay’s slate-gray eyes bypassed the police tape and locked entirely onto her corpse. He lifted his chin slightly, his deep, resonant voice cutting through the downpour:

"Take her. And retrieve the child's remains from Mount Sinai Hospital as well."

His chief assistant, Ira Perkins, waved the bodyguards past the police line and lifted Alyce's body into a black velvet mortuary bag with utmost reverence.

Alyce stared from above, her chest tightening. In life, she had died a thousand deaths trying to escape this terrifying tyrant. Yet in death—after her family betrayed her and her husband murdered her daughter—the only person who came to collect her broken body and lay her child to rest was the very "monster" she had feared the most.

Barclay's hands gripped the armrests so hard the veins bulged on his knuckles. He squeezed his eyes shut for a second, swallowing his grief, then spoke a single, chilling word:

"Go."

As the convoy roared away into the night, a violent suction yanked Alyce's floating form backward into a pitch-black vortex.

Then, a searing, slicing pain tore across her left wrist, slamming her back violently into solid flesh!

"Gasp—!"

Alyce bolted upright, cold sweat soaking clean through her silk nightgown. Bright afternoon sunlight streamed across a thick Persian rug. She looked down—bright red blood was welling rapidly from a deep gash on her left wrist, a shard of broken glass lying inches away on the carpet.

In the vanity mirror across the room, a pale, unscarred face stared back at her.

It was three years ago—the exact afternoon she had slit her wrist to protest her forced engagement to Barclay Reid!

Vivid flashes of her daughter's cold, bruised hand, Charisse's mocking smile, and Barclay's trembling hands holding her body in the rain crashed through her mind. Reaching up with her right hand, she ripped a silk tie-back off the curtain, wrapped the cord tightly above the wound with her teeth, and tied it off into a solid knot without uttering a single whimper.

The bleeding slowed. Since heaven had given her a second chance, every single debt owed to her would be paid back in blood!

Hurried footsteps pounded in the hallway outside, followed by a maid's shrill voice:

"Miss Alyce locked her bedroom door from the inside! Get the spare key! Don't let that dirty rat from the slums die in our house and ruin the floors!"

Alyce's gaze turned as cold as glacial ice. In the Brennan household, even the servants treated the true heiress like dirt—over the past six months, whenever Charisse bullied her, she had only cowered in her room and cried.

Not this time.

She shoved the bloody glass shard into the bottom of the trash bin, hid her bleeding left hand behind her back, and opened the door. Three maids and two burly Brennan guards froze mid-action, staring in disbelief.

The head maid's eyes locked onto the crimson drops staining the cream carpet, and she shrieked:

"Oh God! She really cut her wrist! Somebody call Dr. Arthur right now! What a shameless piece of trash, always trying to kill herself and make trouble for the family!"

Ignoring the paralyzed servants, Alyce walked straight up to the towering guard standing by the wall. The moment his heavy hand reached for her shoulder, she pivoted. Her right hand shot out like a striking viper, locking onto his wrist joint and violently twisting it backward.

CRACK!

The two-hundred-pound guard collapsed onto one knee, screaming as excruciating pain paralyzed him. Alyce smoothly snatched the smartphone clipped to his belt.

Dead silence fell over the hallway. The maids stared with their jaws hanging—was this really the same timid, stuttering slum-girl who used to tremble at the sound of a raised voice?!

Alyce tapped the phone screen. The date stared back in bright white digital numbers—October 15, 2021.

She tossed the phone back into the kneeling guard's lap, a terrifying, bloodthirsty smile curving her lips. Then she turned, dragging her bleeding wrist, and strode down the grand staircase, leaving a trail of vivid red drops on the cream carpet.

This time, not only would she accept the marriage, but she would also tear off Charisse's fake saintly mask piece by piece, walk proudly over the spines of the Brennan family, and become the lawful wife of the terrifying tyrant everyone feared!