Reborn Heiress The Predator In Silk

Jane sat up on the silk sheets, her lungs seizing as if the air in the room had turned to concrete. Her hands flew to her throat. She clawed at skin that should have been bruised, expecting the rough burn of a rope, but her fingers met only smooth, sweat-slicked flesh. The phantom pain of strangulation pulsed in her neck, a rhythmic throb that matched the frantic hammering of her heart against her ribs.

She scrambled backward, her spine hitting the headboard with a hollow thud. Her hand knocked over a lamp on the nightstand. It was an antique Tiffany lamp, heavy and expensive, the kind that cost more than her entire tuition. It didn't belong in her life, not the one she'd just been ripped from. But she recognized it. She was in a guest room at Blackwood Manor. Nothing here belonged to her.

The bass of electronic dance music vibrated through the floorboards, a relentless thumping that clashed with the silence of the death she remembered. Jane grabbed the phone lying on the pillow. The screen lit up, blinding her in the semi-darkness.

October 14, 2014. 11:15 PM.

The numbers stared back at her, mocking and absolute. Her pupils contracted. The bile rose in her throat, acidic and sharp. This was the night of The Initiation. The night her life had turned from a struggle into a tragedy.

She threw the covers off and sprinted barefoot into the bathroom. Her hands gripped the cold porcelain of the sink so hard her knuckles turned white. She stared into the mirror.

The face looking back was twenty years old. The skin was tight and unblemished. There were no bags under the eyes from years of cheap whiskey and sleepless nights. There was no scar on her left cheekbone where a debt collector had struck her with a ring-clad fist.

A heavy fist pounded on the bedroom door outside.

Come out, Cinderella! The game is starting!

The voice was slurred, entitled. It belonged to one of Kolby Norman's friends. Jane's shoulders hunched instinctively, a muscle memory of fear that had been beaten into her for a decade. She trembled.

Then, the trembling stopped.

Her eyes in the mirror changed. The panic receded, replaced by a flat, dead calm. It was the look of someone who had already died and found the afterlife wanting.

She turned on the faucet. The water was freezing. She splashed it onto her face, scrubbing away the last remnants of the victim she used to be. The cold stung, grounding her.

Images flashed behind her eyelids. Alejandra Norman laughing as she poured wine over Jane's only good dress. Kolby Norman forcing a funnel into her mouth. The trust fund documents she had signed without reading because she was desperate for approval. The memory of her mother, Susan, wasting away in a charity hospital while the Normans vacationed in Monaco.

Jane reached for the small grooming kit on the marble counter. She took out a pair of tweezers, her fingers steady. The original plan had been so small, so pathetic-to look presentable, to try and win a crumb of their approval.

A bead of bright red blood welled up from where she'd dug a nail into her palm. The sting was sharp, immediate, and real.