PlotlumeThe fake heiress, Blair, got to stay in the family after the truth came out. She cried every day, swearing she would make it up to me, the real daughter.
She stole my business marriage to vampire CEO Nikolai Crowe. She said he was cold and cruel, and that she would take my place and suffer for me.
She pocketed the ten billion dollar settling-in fund Nikolai gave me. Then she sobbed that I had threatened her into covering my gambling debts at an underground casino.
She smashed the antique sports car that Nikolai's mother left behind. Then she turned around and said I had set it on fire to get back at the family.
Behind Nikolai's back, she sneaked off to the penthouse suite on the top floor of the company tower with his enemy, the Mafia heir. Then her heart stopped after she overdosed on a concentrated vampire hallucinogen.
"Sister, I know you hate that I took your place, but why did you bring five hired men to force poison down my throat?"
Blair lay in the ICU, clutching Nikolai's sleeve and sobbing her heart out.
"Do you want me dead that badly? You even took the life-saving blood crystal Nikolai gave me!"
Nikolai believed her lies. His eyes went cold as he dragged me into a mobile freezer set to minus twenty-two degrees Fahrenheit.
"You love playing with fire. Now freeze in there and turn into an ice sculpture to atone for Blair!"
I was frozen to death inside that freezer.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day Blair's heart stopped in the penthouse suite.
1
I stared at the calendar on my phone and confirmed I had been reborn to October 21st, eight o'clock at night.
Tonight, the fake heiress Blair was sneaking around in the penthouse suite, and she was about to go into cardiac arrest from an overdose of vampire hallucinogen.
The phone on the nightstand suddenly buzzed. Nikolai's name lit up the screen.
I pressed answer, and his roar exploded through the earpiece.
"Clara! You shameless bitch! Where did you drag Blair off to tonight?"
"Blair puts up with you because she's trying to protect your pride. She goes along with everything you say. How much longer are you going to keep sucking her dry?"
"I'm warning you. If you don't hand Blair over safely within ten minutes, I'll have you sent to the Nightfall Discipline House and locked away for good!"
I gripped the burning phone, and my stomach churned with disgust.
When I was first brought back to the family, Blair held my hand and cried every day. She showed me fake videos of Nikolai mistreating his subordinates.
She urged me to stay away from this cold-blooded monster. Then she wore my clothes and crawled into Nikolai's arms, taking my ten billion dollar fund and my business marriage.
Every time she went to meet Vito Russo, Nikolai's enemy and the Mafia heir, she told Nikolai that I had lost all the money at the underground casino, or that I had been held at a nightclub after causing trouble there, and that she needed to go bail me out.
Nikolai was still ranting over the phone. I cut him off.
"Nikolai, you care so much about your precious wife. Why don't you go see how busy she is right now?"
"She's getting CPR right now. She probably can't answer your call."
"What nonsense are you talking? Blair is always healthy. How could she need CPR? You must be behind this!"
I was sick of listening to him bark. I hung up and held the power button to turn off my phone.
The room was quiet for less than ten minutes before the heavy security door of the apartment slammed under a violent blow.
The metal lock snapped with a crack. The whole door toppled inward, kicking up a cloud of dust.
Several vampire bodyguards in black suits rushed in. They twisted my arms behind my back and pinned my hands to the floor.
My chin slammed onto the hard tile with a sickening crack.
Nikolai stepped in over the wood chips and ground his shoe down on my fingers.
"Search! Tear this dump apart if you have to. Find my wife!"
The guards stormed the bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom. They flipped over the wardrobe, yanked every drawer out, and threw them on the floor. In seconds, the whole studio apartment was turned upside down.
"Sir, there's no one in the bedroom!"
"No sign of your wife in the bathroom or on the balcony either!"
After the report, Nikolai strode straight to me, bent down, grabbed my throat, and lifted my upper body off the floor.
"Bitch, where did you hide Blair?"
"She told me this morning that you were the one who couldn't pay your tab at a club, and that she had to beg her way into the nightclub to bring you money!"
"What did you mean earlier about her getting CPR? Did you team up with some lowlife outside to kidnap her?"
Lack of air made my temples throb. I tilted my head up into his palm and let out a low laugh from deep in my chest.
"Nikolai, you've got two giant ears. Are they just for decoration?"
"I only said Blair was getting CPR. When did I ever say she was at my place?"
"Instead of going crazy in my four-hundred-square-foot dump, why don't you go check the bed of your enemy, the Mafia heir Vito Russo?"
Veins bulged on the back of Nikolai's hand, and fangs slid out past his lips.
He yanked harder, hauled me up off the floor, and slammed me down across the glass coffee table in the living room.
The table shattered. Jagged glass tore through my house clothes and dug deep into my back.
Nikolai planted one foot on the wreckage of the table and jabbed a finger at my nose, roaring down at me.
"Clara, if you dare slander Blair with another vicious lie, I'll rip your throat out right now!"
"Blair wouldn't step on an ant if she could help it. How could she possibly know a Mafia scumbag like Vito Russo!"
"I'm asking you one last time. Which nightclub was Blair cleaning up your mess at?"
I lay in the pile of broken glass. Blood seeped through the cracks in the floor and stained the tips of his shiny shoes red.
I lifted my right hand, dripping with blood, and pointed at the wall clock, its hand at 8:20.
"Nikolai, in ten more minutes, you won't even be able to touch her warm corpse."
2
I propped myself up on the edge of the shattered table. The glass shards in my back dug in a little deeper as I moved.
"Blair is a living, breathing person with long legs. Where she runs off to with some other man is none of my business."
The words had barely left my mouth when Nikolai swung his hand and slapped me across the left cheek.