“Aspen gasped for air, her body bolting upright in bed. It was the night before the Hogan family planned to sacrifice her, just as they had in her past life before she died in that freezing, blood-stained wreckage. She looked at her hands-they were unscarred, nineteen again, and filled with a cold, terrifying clarity. She remembered everything: the betrayal, the bank accounts drained by Julian, and the man she had once feared, Deron Fitzpatrick, who would burn down a city to avenge her. The Hogans were already plotting to force her into a marriage with Deron, a man the world whispered was a broken cripple. They intended to keep their precious biological daughter, Sloane, safe while throwing Aspen to the wolves as a disposable pawn. She felt the familiar, suffocating grip of the Hogan estate, the fake smiles of her adoptive parents, and the burning injustice of a life where she had always been the invisible victim, silenced and discarded by those who owed her everything. Why was she back? Why had the universe given her a second chance to witness the same cruelty? The panic in her veins turned into ice, and she realized the game had changed. She walked straight to Sloane's closet, donned a crimson silk dress, and set out to find Deron. She didn't just want to survive; she would make a deal with the devil himself, turn her sacrifice into a weapon, and ensure that tonight, she would be the executioner.”