The Billion-Dollar Dirt Farm

The Billion-Dollar Dirt Farm

Gavin

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The air in the Oakhaven County Courthouse records office was thick with the smell of old paper. My pen hovered over the sales agreement for the little house on Elm Street, my entire inheritance from Grandma about to be invested, mostly in my boyfriend Mark' s name. I envisioned our future, eager to make his big dreams a reality. Then, a cold dread washed over me – a memory both utterly foreign and terrifyingly real. I had signed these papers before. In that forgotten life, Mark, emboldened by newly discovered fracking rights on the land, took my money, left me for Brenda, and abandoned me. I was left with nothing, ultimately dying alone from pneumonia in a brutal winter. My eyes snapped up. Across the room, Mark leaned against the wall, whispering to Brenda. She giggled, glancing at me with a sly, triumphant smirk. "We'll paint the kitchen yellow," Brenda declared, her voice carrying, "That awful blue Sarah likes has to go." Mark chuckled, "Anything you want, Bren. It's gonna be our place, after all." My place. My inheritance. A sickening punch to the gut. This was it – the exact, soul-crushing moment of betrayal, relived. How could this be happening? Was I insane? But then, a fierce realization ignited within me. I wasn't dead. I was here. My heart hammered, "A second chance!" The naive Sarah was gone, frozen to death in another timeline. This Sarah remembered everything. My hand, trembling no longer, closed into a fist. And with a defiant roar of paper, I ripped the sales agreement in half.

Introduction

The air in the Oakhaven County Courthouse records office was thick with the smell of old paper. My pen hovered over the sales agreement for the little house on Elm Street, my entire inheritance from Grandma about to be invested, mostly in my boyfriend Mark' s name. I envisioned our future, eager to make his big dreams a reality.

Then, a cold dread washed over me – a memory both utterly foreign and terrifyingly real. I had signed these papers before. In that forgotten life, Mark, emboldened by newly discovered fracking rights on the land, took my money, left me for Brenda, and abandoned me. I was left with nothing, ultimately dying alone from pneumonia in a brutal winter.

My eyes snapped up. Across the room, Mark leaned against the wall, whispering to Brenda. She giggled, glancing at me with a sly, triumphant smirk. "We'll paint the kitchen yellow," Brenda declared, her voice carrying, "That awful blue Sarah likes has to go." Mark chuckled, "Anything you want, Bren. It's gonna be our place, after all."

My place. My inheritance. A sickening punch to the gut. This was it – the exact, soul-crushing moment of betrayal, relived. How could this be happening? Was I insane?

But then, a fierce realization ignited within me. I wasn't dead. I was here. My heart hammered, "A second chance!" The naive Sarah was gone, frozen to death in another timeline. This Sarah remembered everything. My hand, trembling no longer, closed into a fist. And with a defiant roar of paper, I ripped the sales agreement in half.

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A Five-Year Deception, A Lifetime of Payback

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Gavin
5.0

I was the long-lost Donovan heiress, finally brought home after a childhood in foster care. My parents adored me, my husband cherished me, and the woman who tried to ruin my life, Kiera Reese, was locked away in a mental facility. I was safe. I was loved. On my birthday, I decided to surprise my husband, Ivan, at his office. But he wasn't there. I found him at a private art gallery across town. He was with Kiera. She wasn't in a facility. She was radiant, laughing as she stood beside my husband and their five-year-old son. I watched through the glass as Ivan kissed her, a familiar, loving gesture he’d used with me just that morning. I crept closer and overheard them. My birthday wish to go to the amusement park had been denied because he’d already promised the entire park to their son—whose birthday was the same day as mine. "She’s so grateful to have a family, she’d believe anything we tell her," Ivan said, his voice laced with a cruelty that stole my breath. "It's almost sad." My entire reality—my loving parents who funded this secret life, my devoted husband—was a five-year lie. I was just the fool they kept on stage. My phone buzzed. It was a text from Ivan, sent while he stood with his real family. "Just got out of the meeting. So exhausting. I miss you." The casual lie was the final blow. They thought I was a pathetic, grateful orphan they could control. They were about to find out just how wrong they were.

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