Chapter 2

2

Savannah walked straight up to me before I could even process her words.

She didn't care about my attempt to dodge her. She reached out and yanked the locket from beneath my filthy collar.

Her fingers traced the engraving on the silver surface, and a small smirk played on her lips.

For a moment, I was reminded of how she looked the first time we met in my past life.

Back then, she had touched the locket with the same delicate precision.

【Finally! Savannah recognized the Sterling crest!】

【The imposter can't talk his way out of this one!】

【Savannah, take your man to his parents! You're supposed to be a family!】

Looking at the scrolling text, a tiny, weak flame of hope flickered in my heart.

But that flame was brutally crushed by reality a second later.

Savannah raised her hand and slapped me across the face.

"You shameless little thief! How dare you steal from the Sterling family!"

"If I hadn't caught you red-handed, were you planning to use this to scam Mr. and Mrs. Sterling?"

She turned and pressed the locket into Lucas's hand, her voice suddenly turning sweet and gentle.

"Lucas, honey, you need to be more careful with your things. Don't let these low-lifes get their hands on them."

The sudden shift in her personality felt like a bucket of ice water poured over my head.

The bullet screen went absolutely ballistic.

【Savannah, what the hell are you talking about? That locket belongs to Silas!】

【She can't even recognize her own fiancé? Someone donate her eyes to charity!】

I bit my lip to keep the tears from falling, but my vision was already a mess.

The comments were calling Savannah blind and saying she would regret this.

But I knew better. She was more lucid right now than she had ever been.

It was because she was so clear-headed that she made this choice.

In my past life, the Sterlings had come to the orphanage to claim me.

I was huddled in the yard with the other kids, staring at the glamorous couple with wide eyes.

Everyone was desperate to be the one chosen.

But the headmaster had pushed his favorite, Lucas, to the front.

I watched my parents stroke Lucas's head with such tenderness. I watched Savannah hold his hand, her cheeks flushing.

My heart had ached so much I could barely breathe.

Prompted by the bullet screen, I gathered my courage, pulled out the locket, and ran forward.

I exposed the headmaster's plot to swap me for Lucas.

After the truth came out, my parents had rushed to pull me into their arms.

They cried when they saw the scars all over my body.

They glared at the headmaster and Lucas with pure hatred.

Then they smiled at me with such warmth.

"Sweetheart, Mom and Dad are here now. No one will ever hurt you again."

When I first moved back into the Sterling mansion, they tried to give me the whole world to make up for my lost years.

That warmth was real back then.

At dinner, my mother was so afraid I'd burn my tongue on the soup.

She would blow on every spoonful herself before feeding me.

My father was usually a stern, serious man who rarely smiled.

But he secretly framed my messy childhood sketches and hung them in the most prominent spot in his study.

And Savannah's love was hidden in every little detail.

When she realized I had night terrors, she stayed up for days to hand-stitch a lavender sachet to help me sleep.

When I was hospitalized with a high fever, she stayed by my bed for three days straight.

She was so exhausted she fell asleep clutching the towel she used to wipe my sweat.

On my eighteenth birthday, I officially took over the family business.

At the gala, in front of every elite guest, she placed an ancestral pendant around my neck.

"Even if our parents hadn't arranged this, and even if you weren't a Sterling, you're the only one I'd ever choose."

But all those beautiful memories that I had drowned in eventually turned into smoke.

The night before our engagement, Savannah showed up at the banquet with Lucas.

In front of all our elders, she threw her engagement ring at my feet.

"My engagement to Silas is over."

"This arranged marriage was your idea, not mine. Why should I have to follow it?"

My parents were furious. They slapped Savannah and ordered the guards to drag Lucas out.

They wanted him erased from the city.

But less than a month later, Lucas was back in our house.

My parents brought him home, saying he was a poor soul and they were adopting him as their ward.

They even pressured me to give up on Savannah so they could find me a more suitable match.

The smirk on Lucas's face was as smug as my expression was pathetic.

Seeing my family and my love side with Lucas for no reason, my rage finally boiled over.

I punched Lucas right in his lying face.

I shouted that if he stayed in this house, I was leaving.

I didn't expect Lucas to leave a tear-stained suicide note that very night and vanish.

He wrote that he didn't want to make things hard for my parents or Savannah.

He claimed he wanted to end the drama with his own death.

Because of that, my parents disowned me.

Years later, when they both passed away, they left a will.

It explicitly forbade me from being at their deathbeds or even attending their funerals.

Savannah married me as planned, but she didn't speak a single word to me for decades.

We lived under the same roof like ghosts, like total strangers.

Until the day I was gasping my final breaths on a hospital bed.

Savannah finally opened her mouth.

"Silas, if I could do it all over again, I'd rather have missed you from the start."

Her wish came true. Fate gave us a second chance.

I had planned to stay quiet and never claim my identity.

I just wanted them to take Lucas and leave the orphanage so we'd never see each other again.

But to my surprise.

Savannah still wanted to humiliate me one last time before she left.