After Rebirth, I Ruined Them All
Betrayed by her sister. Killed by her husband.
Reborn, Sarah returns with one goal-revenge.
This time, she won't be the fool.
And with the Knox, the most dangerous man by her side...
she'll ruin them all, and take back everything that belongs to her.
Promotional line: They killed me once. This time, I'll destroy them first.
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Chapter 8
GENERAL
When the car stopped in front of the mansion, Knox stepped out and rushed to the other side to open the door for Sarah.
It was the first time he had done that, and something about it made her smile.
Leonard and the other men around exchanged glances and blushed at their boss's not-so-gentlemanly action. They had never seen that side of him before. No one had.
The mighty Knox never opened doors for anyone. Instead, thousands of people opened doors for him, and would gladly lie on the floor for him to step on.
As soon as Sarah stepped out of the car, her phone rang. She brought it out to check the caller ID and realized it was Gerald. Her heart skipped a beat, and she quickly hid the screen before Knox could catch a glimpse. She knew exactly how he would react if he saw the name. And she had already had a long, hectic day; all she wanted was to spend the rest of the night in peace.
But unknown to her, Knox had already seen it and was now anticipating her next move.
"Who is that?" Knox asked as they walked into the house.
"My mother," she mumbled, causing him to stop in his tracks. Rage surged through him instantly, and his eyes darkened.
He smirked, suppressing the urge to explode.
The phone stopped ringing at that moment. However, before she could sigh in relief, it started ringing again.
"Didn't you already talk to her in the car?" he asked, still watching to see how far she would go with the lie.
"I... Maybe she just remembered something," She forced a smile. "Let me quickly take this." She rushed into the bedroom before Knox could respond.
As soon as she tossed her bag onto the bed, she picked up the call.
"Sarah... Sarah..." Gerald's voice echoed from the other end. It was shaky, as if he had been crying. "Today was supposed to be our engagement. Why my uncle? Why not me?"
Sarah rolled her eyes and sighed, suppressing the urge to snap at his annoying voice.
"I thought you loved me. I thought you wanted to spend the rest of your life with me." He paused. "We had plans, Sarah. We had so many plans. We promised to travel around the world together. To have our own garden and plant your favorite flowers everywhere..." His voice trailed off.
"Gerald, are you drunk?" one of her brows lifted. She didn't expect him to react this way. He never loved her. He should be relieved she didn't force herself on him. So why all the drama?
"Sarah, you can't do this to me. You know how much I hate Knox. Even if you want to leave me, Knox shouldn't be the next man you choose," he said.
Sarah snorted. "Calm down, Gerald," she muttered. "Things aren't what they seem. I might be engaged to Knox today, but it doesn't mean I love him. You need to understand that my engagement to Knox is to protect you," she explained, her eyes glinting with mischief.
She couldn't cut Gerald off yet. Letting him go now would mean letting him go unpunished. No. She didn't want that. They needed to feel everything she had felt-twice over.
"Are you serious, Sarah? What are you talking about?" The weakness in his voice vanished instantly.
Sarah's lips curled. The same voice that had sounded broken a moment ago was now firm and steady. Gerald, his manipulative skills were sharp, but not anymore. She would teach him how the game was really played.
"Yes, Gerald. He threatened me. He said he would kill you if I went ahead with the engagement with you." She paused and forced her voice to tremble, pretending to cry. "What was I supposed to do? Let him kill you? I had no choice but to accept his proposal." She lied and broke into sobs, though no tears fell from her eyes.
"I don't know if my sister told you this, but I slapped her when she tried to talk to me about you," she continued, laying everything out at once to avoid suspicion. "Knox was nearby at the time, and I had no choice but to slap her to convince him I was ready to be his." Her expression fell. "I made an unforgivable mistake. Do you think Amara will ever forgive me?"
Gerald gasped on the other end. "Knox, that bastard. I knew it. I knew you wouldn't betray me." His jaw clenched. "Don't worry, Sarah. Just stay with him for now. I'll find a way to save you from him," he assured her. "And don't worry about Amara. I'll talk to her. I'm sure she'll understand your intentions."
"I'm scared, Gerald. He could hurt me. What if I try to escape?" she asked. "But what if he decides to hurt you after I leave? Your uncle seems dangerous. What if he kills you because I escaped?"
Sarah asked deliberately.
"No, Sarah. No, please. Don't escape. Don't leave," he pleaded, panic lacing his voice.
Sarah almost laughed at his reaction. He proved her right.
"Just stay there. Stay with him until we find a way out of this mess. Please, babe. Just endure everything for me," he said, his voice trembling with fear and desperation.
"Alright, Gerald. I just want you to trust me. I have nothing-absolutely nothing-to do with your uncle."
"I trust you, babe," he replied immediately. "I fucking trust you with my whole life. You don't have to worry about anything, Sarah. I love you," he added softly.
Without responding, Sarah ended the call and tossed her phone onto the bed. She let out a deep breath.
"That was a lot of work," she murmured.
She wondered how Gerald and Amara had managed to act for years without getting exhausted. Maybe deception came naturally to them.
Meanwhile, the door hadn't fully closed, and Knox stood silently, having heard everything. He stood there, silent and still, as something dark settled behind his eyes.
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7.9
June was an ordinary architect struggling to pay rent, completely estranged from her high-society mother.
But one night, she was kidnapped and beaten in an abandoned warehouse by Gage Becker, the city's most ruthless billionaire, who demanded payback for her mother's sins.
Gage pointed a high-definition camera at June's battered face and video-called her mother, threatening to release the footage and ruin her upcoming billion-dollar wedding.
"I will never throw away a billion-dollar marriage for a useless daughter."
Her mother's cold voice echoed through the warehouse before the line went dead.
From that moment, Gage systematically destroyed June's life. She was publicly humiliated and forced to hack off her own hair with a cigar cutter. She was blacklisted from every firm in the city, evicted by her landlord, and violently mugged in a freezing New York blizzard.
Curled up in an icy tunnel waiting to die, June felt a suffocating despair. She hadn't spoken to her mother in months. Why did she have to endure this hell for a woman who didn't even care if she lived or died? Why was a monster like Gage so obsessed with driving her to the grave?
When Gage's armored Maybach pulled up, he stepped into the snow to mock her, waiting for her to finally surrender and beg for his mercy.
But the absolute humiliation snapped the last thread of June's sanity.
Instead of crying, she lunged forward with feral energy and sank her teeth directly into the devil's flesh.
8.6
Lilac Stone once wanted nothing more than being unnoticed. But everything changed the moment she met Adrian Cole, the new lecturer.
He's distant and completely off-limits. She's quiet, guarded, and unprepared for the way he sees right through her.
What begins as harmless conversations after class quickly turns into something far more dangerous-something neither of them can stop no matter how hard they try.
But then they're living in a world where rules are meant to be followed, and their connection is one line they were never supposed to cross.
Whispers turn to accusations. Secrets are exposed. Their futures are at risk.
They are merely two opposites-a lecturer and a student, a male and a female-but they are bound to destroy each other as long as they are huddled in one space at the same time.
What then can they choose: forfeit their futures and embrace their happiness, or let the latter slip while keeping their careers intact?
9.5
The first clue my life was a lie was a moan from the guest room. My husband of seven years wasn't in our bed. He was with my intern.
I discovered my husband, Brendan, was having a four-year affair with Kiya-the talented girl I was mentoring and personally paying tuition for.
The next morning, she sat at our breakfast table in his shirt while he made us pancakes. He lied to my face, promising he'd never love another, just before I learned she was pregnant with his child-a child he'd always refused to have with me.
The two people I trusted most in the world had conspired to destroy me. The pain wasn't something I could live with; it was an annihilation of my entire world.
So I made a call to a neuroscientist about his experimental, irreversible procedure. I didn't want revenge. I wanted to erase every memory of my husband and become his first test subject.
9.7
Gemma expected the tearing agony of the bullet wound that had just ended her life.
Instead, her trembling fingers met the cool, smooth friction of heavy silk.
She stared into the mirror. Her face was flawless, completely devoid of the jagged scar that had marred her cheek for the last five years.
It was exactly ten years ago. The day of her engagement party to the ruthless billionaire, Brion Hubbard.
In her past life, her "best friend" Katelyn convinced her to run away with a scheming scumbag.
Katelyn claimed Brion was a heartless tyrant who would ruin her. Gemma had foolishly believed those fake tears.
That choice led to her family's bankruptcy, her brutal disfigurement, and ultimately, a fatal bomb explosion.
The only person who tried to save her was Brion, his blood-soaked body shielding hers from the blast.
She even realized too late that the strawberry cream cakes she always made for him were full of dairy.
He wasn't leaving to cheat on her. He was locking himself in a medical bay, fighting fatal allergic shock, just to accept a tiny scrap of her affection.
Gemma had been so incredibly blind. Why did she trust the venomous snakes who destroyed her, while hating the man who died for her?
Hearing Katelyn frantically knocking on the dressing room door, urging her to run away again, a towering hatred surged through Gemma's veins.
This time, she wasn't going to run.
She was going to expose the traitors, take back her family's wealth, and claim the tyrant for herself.
8.9
My family's company went bankrupt, and my biological father was lying in the ICU, kept alive by machines that cost tens of thousands a day.
I thought it was just a tragic business failure, until I caught my mother in bed with my stepfather.
They had secretly transferred all our assets months ago, deliberately bankrupting the company and leaving my father to die.
To pay the hospital bills, my stepfather forced me to a private club, trying to sell me to a sleazy investor.
When I refused, he slapped me across the face, and my mother just looked at me with cold, dead eyes.
"Be realistic, Jaelynn. A woman's body is a tool. Use it to get what you need."
Later, right before my father's emergency surgery, my stepfather signed a Do Not Resuscitate order and froze the medical accounts.
"If you don't get on your knees and spread your legs for him, I will tell the hospital to pull your father's plug."
Standing in the freezing rain, covered in mud and blood, I stared at the astronomical hospital bill in my hand.
My own family had plotted to murder my father and sell me to the highest bidder. The betrayal shattered every ounce of sanity I had left.
I didn't cry or beg them anymore.
Instead, I pulled out a water-stained, gold-embossed business card.
It belonged to Dolph Valentine, the most ruthless billionaire in New York and my ex-fiancé's uncle.
If they wanted to destroy my life, I was going to sell my soul to the biggest monster of them all and drag them straight to hell.
8.0
Madeline slammed the prenuptial agreement onto the table, forcing Danielle to sign herself away as a "blood bag" bride.
To secure her mother's safety, Danielle was sold to the ruthless, comatose billionaire Deforest Stuart. She kept her head down, perfectly playing the role of a terrified, broken mute.
But on her wedding night, Deforest's sister set a vicious trap, dragging Danielle to a hotel to be ruined by a sleazy investor.
Danielle was prepared to escape, but the hotel door was suddenly smashed open by a massive figure.
It wasn't the investor. It was her comatose husband, Deforest, temporarily awakened by a violent, drug-induced rage.
In the pitch-black room, he pinned her down, mistaking her scent for a ghost from his past, and violently claimed her.
She fled before dawn, only to be blinded by camera flashes.
His sister dragged her back to the Stuart manor, ripping her collar open under the chandelier to expose the dark hickeys on her neck.
"Throw this shameless whore out into the street!" the matriarch ordered.
Danielle's eyes grew cold. If they kicked her out now, her years of planning to tear this rotten family apart would be completely destroyed.
No one believed that the monster who assaulted her was the very man lying perfectly still in the medical wing.
Playing the frantic mute, Danielle dragged the family to his bedroom.
Right as the guards reached for her, she launched herself onto the bed, crushing her weight directly onto Deforest's chest.
A second later, the "comatose" tyrant's eyes snapped open with murderous rage, and her real game of revenge finally began.