Rebirth: Reclaiming My Stolen Heiress Life

Alma Kane POV:

"Doctor, her vitals are dropping critically. If we extract any more blood, she will go into cardiac arrest," a trembling, panicked voice echoed through the sterile, freezing operating room. The rhythmic, agonizing beep-beep-beep of the heart monitor was the only sound tethering me to the world of the living.

I lay completely paralyzed on the cold, unforgiving surgical table. The thick, transparent tubes snaking out of my veins were draining my life away, drop by dark red drop, pumping it into a collection bag destined for someone else.

"Cut the crap and keep drawing!" my biological father, Arthur Kane, ordered ruthlessly. He stood over me, his face completely devoid of any paternal warmth, looking at me not as a daughter, but as a slaughtered livestock. "This tiny amount of blood is nowhere near enough to cure my Keshia. I don't care if her heart stops. Drain her dry if you have to!"

Beside him stood Anders Diaz, the man I had devoted myself to, the man I had been married to for five agonizing years. He looked down at my pale, dying, sweat-drenched face without a single ounce of pity. His eyes, which used to look at me with fake adoration, now only held cold impatience. "I have wronged Keshia for far too long," he said coldly, adjusting his expensive cuffs. "We need to save her. I'm sorry, Alma, but you have to be sacrificed. Your life is the only useful thing you have left."

My heart shattered into a million irreparable pieces of dust. Through my rapidly fading consciousness, I heard the door open, and my stepsister, Keshia, was wheeled in. She was laughing-a weak, sickly sound, but heavily laced with triumphant malice. "Anders, once she's finally gone, we can give our daughter a proper, legitimate family."

"I know, my love," Anders replied tenderly. The sheer contrast between his cruelty toward me and his devotion to her made me want to vomit. He leaned down, kissing her forehead softly. "Our eight-year-old angel will finally have her parents legally married. We will live happily ever after, with her wealth and her company."

Eight years old. The words echoed in my dying brain. I had been married to Anders for five years, yet their bastard daughter was already eight. They had been sleeping together, making a complete mockery of my stupidity, long before our grand sham of a wedding.

But the most horrific, soul-crushing revelation was yet to come.

Arthur chuckled darkly, patting the trembling doctor on the shoulder. "You did a clean, brilliant job nine years ago, Doctor. When that semi-truck I arranged failed to kill Alma's mother on the highway, you finished her off perfectly right here, on this exact same operating table. I trust you'll make Alma's death look just as natural. A tragic medical complication."

My blood literally ran cold, freezing in my collapsing veins. My mother hadn't died of severe injuries from the accident. She was murdered! Murdered by my own father, on this very table, by this exact same doctor! Did my brilliant, loving mother lie here, fully conscious and paralyzed by anesthetics like a fish on a chopping block, watching her own life be stolen away just like me?

An overwhelming, suffocating wave of pure, unadulterated hatred consumed my soul, burning hotter than hellfire. If there was a next life, I swore to the deepest pits of hell that I would crawl back as a vengeful demon. I would tear their flesh from their bones, rip away everything they loved, and make them pay in blood!

GASP.

I inhaled violently, my eyes flying open as I sucked in a desperate, greedy lungful of air. I wasn't in the sterile, metallic hell of the operating room. I wasn't dying. I was tangled in soft, incredibly expensive silk sheets. The blinding, golden morning sunlight was streaming through the massive floor-to-ceiling windows of a lavish penthouse hotel suite.

My body ached with a profound, lingering soreness, particularly between my thighs and across my lower back. I turned my head stiffly, the silk rustling against my sensitive skin, and my breath hitched in my throat.

A man was sitting on the edge of the bed, already awake. His broad, heavily muscled back was bare to the morning light, showcasing the terrifying, explosive physical power of a top-tier professional athlete. I could see the faint, rugged scars crisscrossing his sculpted shoulder blades-marks of brutal battles on the ice.

Memories of my past life flooded my mind like a broken dam. Today was supposed to be my wedding day to Anders Diaz. Last night was my bachelorette party, the absolute beginning of my five-year-long nightmare. Keshia, smiling that sweet, venomous smile, had handed me a glass of spiked champagne. Dizzy, disoriented, and burning with an unnatural, consuming heat, I had somehow stumbled into the wrong VIP suite and spent a wild, completely out-of-control night with a stranger.

In my past life, Anders had used this exact "scandal" to guilt-trip and mentally torture me. He played the forgiving martyr, forcing me into a miserable, submissive marriage where they slowly drained my wealth, my dignity, and eventually, my literal blood.

But heaven had heard my dying, blood-soaked curse. I was reborn. Reborn five years ago, on the exact morning that changed everything.

I looked closely at the man's profile as he shifted. He turned his head slightly, and I instantly recognized that sharp, aristocratic jawline and those deep, glacial blue eyes that could freeze a man in his tracks.

Hayden Harper.

The formidable, legendary captain of the NHL's New York Ghosts. A sports superstar with immense, generational wealth and terrifying, untouchable influence. He was a man standing at the very apex of the global pyramid-someone my arrogant father, Arthur, and my hypocritical fiancé, Anders, would have to bow their heads to, desperately trying to curry favor just to breathe the same air as him.

My mind was a chaotic, spinning storm. I had actually slept with Hayden Harper. I was reborn. Today was my wedding day.

The sheer, crushing weight of this reality pressed down on me. I opened my mouth, complicated emotions swirling in my chest, preparing to speak, to negotiate, to figure out my very first step in this new life.

But before I could utter a single syllable, Hayden reached out. His large, calloused hand-a hand that wielded a hockey stick with deadly precision-held a small, white pill. His gaze was unyielding, intense, and suffocatingly dominant as he handed it to me.

"Take this," he commanded, his voice a low, magnetic rumble that vibrated through the quiet room and sent an involuntary shiver down my spine.

I stared at the pill resting in his massive palm, my heart skipping a frantic beat. What exactly was this?