Reborn As A Ruthless Heiress

The Scars She Hid From The World

REGINA MCBRIDE

The heavy iron gates of the Wilderness Correction Camp groaned as they released me after three years of state-sponsored hell. I stood on the dirt road, clutching a plastic bag that held my entire life, waiting for the family that claimed they sent me there for "rehab." My brother, Brady, picked me up in a luxury SUV only to throw me out onto a deserted highway in the middle of a brewing storm. He told me I was a "public relations nightmare" and that the rain might finally wash the "stink" of the camp off me. He drove away, leaving me to limp miles through the mud on a snapped ankle. When I finally dragged myself to our family estate, my mother didn't offer a hug; she gasped in horror because my muddy clothes were ruining her Italian marble. They didn't give me my old room back. Instead, they banished me to a moldy gardener’s shack and hired a "babysitter" to make sure I didn't embarrass them further. My sister, Kaleigh, stood there in white cashmere, pretending to cry while clinging to her fiancé, Ambrose—the man who had once been mine. They all treated me like a volatile junkie, refusing to acknowledge that Kaleigh was the one who planted the drugs in my bag three years ago. They wanted to believe I was broken so they wouldn't have to feel guilty about the "wellness retreat" that was actually a torture chamber. I sat in the dark of that shed, feeling the cooling gel on the cigarette burns that covered my arms, and realized they had made a fatal mistake. They thought they had erased me, but I had returned with a roadmap of scars and a hidden satellite phone. At dinner, I didn't beg for their love. I simply rolled up my sleeves and showed them the price of their silence. As the wine spilled and the lies crumbled, I sent a single text to the only person I trusted: "I'm in. Let them simmer." The hunt was finally on.

Modern Revenge Scheming

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Celeste's POV

Standing at the edge of the bridge, my breath coming in sharp gaps as I turn to face the two people I had trusted the most- Noah Harrington, my devoted fiance, and Sophie Raynes, my childhood best friend.

Except now, their faces are twisted into something unrecognizable.

Looking at Noah's hazel eyes, there is no love, neither is there any warmth for me. Instead, they hold a chilling detachment, as if he was already looking past me, this moment, and even past my existence.

Sophia's usual playful smile is absent, replaced with a satisfying smirk as she plays with the ends of her designer coat. The moonlight created eerie shadows over her face, making her look more like a threat than the friend I had known for years.

My heart pounded heavily in my chest. The realization is a slow, agonizing knife twisting inside me.

"Noah?" My voice wavered, disbelief lacing every syllable. "What ... What is this?"

Noah sighed as if I was nothing more than an inconvenience. "Don't make this harder than it has to be Celeste."

Sophia stepped closer, the clicking sound of her heels echoing on the concrete. "You should have known better, darling. You were never meant to have everything."

My breathing hitches in my throat. The betrayal burns like acid in my veins.

I had loved Noah with all my heart. Given him my trust, my devotion, my future.

What else could he possibly want from me? I don't deserve this kind of betrayal.

Before now, I have always stood by Sophia's side, defended her, and even cherished our friendship a million times.

And yet--- this betrayal is deafening.

"Why?" I ask with a voice barely above a whisper, "After everything we've been through..."

Sophia let out a laugh, light and airy as if I just asked an absurd question. "Because you were always in my way." She said flatly.

I took a step back, my heels scraping against the bridge's stone edge. The river roared beneath me, and the dark abyss stretched infinitely below.

"In the way?" I repeated, my mind spinning. "How is that?"

Sophia's smirk widened. "Noah and I... We've been together for a while now."

The words hit me like a hammer to the chest. My lungs seized, the world around me seems to stop rotating.

No! No, it can't be true.

Noah and Sophia?

I searched Noah's face desperately, holding on to hope that this may be some cruel joke, a misunderstanding. But his expression says otherwise, it remains impassive.

"You never questioned why I never truly look at you, Celeste?" Noah's voice was smooth, almost mocking.

"Why I never really touched you the way a man in love should touch his woman?"

I felt my stomach drop at that instant.

"I never loved you," he continued, his tone brutally calm.

"You were just... Convenient."

Tears burned in my eyes, but I refused to let them fall.

"And what about you, Sophia?" I asked, forcing myself to look at the woman I had once called my sister. "You were my best friend, Sophia."

Sophia rolled her eyes. "Oh, please. You were always so perfect, so adored, so untouchable." She sneered.

"Do you know how exhausting it was to live in your shadow? To watch you have everything, handed to you while I was just feeding from your leftovers?"

My hands form into fists. "That's not true. I never--"

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