The Betrayed Bride

In my last life, my stepsister and my husband murdered me. They stole my position, my children, and my future, leaving me with nothing but a cold, lonely death.

My sister, Belen, was consumed by a cancerous jealousy over my status and my healthy heirs. My husband, Dedric, a man I once loved, saw our children as nothing more than political pawns to secure his own power.

Their shared ambition led them to conspire against me, and in the end, they took my life. I died betrayed and alone, a pawn in their twisted game, never understanding how they could be so cruel.

Then, I woke up.

I was back at the very moment it all began-with Belen on her knees, begging me to fix her broken engagement to Dedric.

This time, I looked at the man who would destroy me and the woman who would help him, and I smiled.

"He's all yours."

Chapter 1

Evelyn POV:

"Evelyn, please! You have to help me!" Belen's voice was a desperate, ugly screech, tearing through the thin walls of my carefully constructed calm.

I didn't answer right away. I just watched her through the cracked door.

She was on her knees, clutching my father's expensive Persian rug like it was her last hope. Her perfect blonde hair was disheveled, her designer dress rumpled.

It was almost comical. Almost.

My father, Bob Harris, stood over her, his face a mask of weary exasperation. He didn't offer a hand to his sobbing legitimate daughter.

He just sighed, a deep, burdened sound that always signaled he was about to make a decision that would benefit him, and only him.

"Evelyn, your sister is distraught," he said, his voice flat, devoid of real emotion. "Dedric has called off the engagement."

He looked at me, his eyes cold and calculating. There was never any warmth for me, his illegitimate child, the inconvenient truth of his past mistakes.

I was just a tool to him, a disposable asset to be used for alliances, never a daughter to be cherished.

A pawn. That's all I had ever been in this family.

I ignored Belen's dramatic sobs, focusing instead on her face. Her eyes, red-rimmed and puffy, still held that familiar glint of self-pity and entitlement.

She wasn't mourning a lost love. She was mourning a lost opportunity.

A lost victory over me.

Belen had always hated me, from the moment I was brought into this house as a teenager, a living monument to my father's infidelity. She saw me as a constant threat, someone who could steal her spotlight, her inheritance, her future.

She had succeeded in stealing my past.

The memory hit me like a physical blow, a phantom pain in my chest. Not a memory from this life, but from the one before. The one where I had been stupid, naive, and hopelessly in love with Dedric Morgan.

The life where Belen and Dedric had conspired to steal everything from me. My position, my children, my very life.

I had died in that life. Murdered.

And then, I woke up. Right back here. In this house. In this moment.