Chapter 1

I was burned alive in my own home in my past life, and it was my own uncle who set the fire.

In my final seconds, I heard him on the phone just outside: "She had it coming. With all that money and such a cold heart―it's better to just burn it all down."

The very first second after my rebirth, my phone rang.

The screen displayed: "Uncle."

"Audrey! We had a massive blueberry harvest this year, twelve thousand pounds! Your company, FreshLeaf, deals in organic produce, right? Take them at an insider price―I'll give you a twenty percent discount!"

I stayed silent for two seconds.

"Fine," I said. "Twelve thousand pounds. I'll take them all. But I'm sending my own team to inspect the shipment."

The line went quiet for three seconds.

Then, he chuckled.

I knew that laugh all too well. It was the same sound he made right before he doused the house in gasoline in my past life.

I hung up and opened TikTok.

I typed into the search bar: #SupportLocalFarmers.

On the screen, my uncle's rugged, honest face was filling the frame, tears streaming down his cheeks.

Perfect.

The fish had just taken the bait.

1

My name is Audrey Hayes, twenty-nine years old, and the founder and CEO of FreshLeaf.

Our company is listed on the NASDAQ with a market cap of 4.3 billion dollars. We specialize in organic fresh produce supply chains―essentially, we make sure middle-class Americans can order farm-to-table produce on their phones, guaranteed free of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

I came up with this business model at twenty-two, landed my first angel investment at twenty-four, and went public at twenty-seven.

Three years ago, I expanded my operations to where I grew up―a rust-belt town in Western Pennsylvania called Honey Brook.

The reason was simple: I wanted to create jobs for the locals.

At its peak, Honey Brook had three steel mills, employing sixty percent of the town. After 2008, they closed one after another. The young people left, and those who stayed were either elderly folks with nowhere to go or middle-aged workers just dragging through the days.

My uncle, Silas Croft, was a member of the town council and the owner of the town's largest blueberry farm.

In my past life, he scammed me out of 4.2 million dollars using ten tons of "organic blueberries." By the time the shipment arrived, most of it was rotten, and my company's cash flow shattered overnight. When I went to the farm to confront him, he claimed the money had already gone into paying off his massive bank loans. He had nothing left. When I threatened to call the police, he snapped.

That very night, he torched my ancestral home.

He burned me and my grandparents alive inside.