Reborn As The Cold Villain's Daughter

Hayley's consciousness ripped out of the dark.

She gasped for air, but her lungs seized. A thick, suffocating sensation coated her throat, like her airway was packed with thick, unyielding cotton. She coughed, a weak, wet sound that rattled in her chest.

Panic spiked. She tried to reach up to rub the blur from her eyes, but her arms felt heavy and uncoordinated. When her hands finally crossed her line of sight, her breath hitched.

These were not her hands.

They were tiny. Plump. The fingers were short and dimpled.

She opened her mouth to scream, to demand what was happening, but her vocal cords betrayed her. Instead of a shout, a high-pitched, nonsensical wail tore from her lips. Ah-ah-ah!

The sheer lack of control sent a shockwave of terror through her system. She tried to roll over, to push herself up, but her muscles felt entirely foreign and weak, her coordination laughably poor. A clumsy, desperate lurch was all she could manage before she flopped backward, her heavy head hitting a soft, firm mattress with a dull thud.

A sharp, piercing static noise suddenly exploded in her skull.

The pain was blinding. She squeezed her eyes shut, her tiny chest heaving.

Target acquired. Welcome to the Kismet System, a cold, mechanical voice echoed directly into her brain. You are dead in your original world. You have been transmigrated into a corporate revenge novel.

Hayley tried to shake her head. This was a hallucination. A nightmare.

The system didn't care. It forced a massive data packet into her mind. Images, names, and plotlines slammed into her consciousness, making her stomach churn.

Edward McClure.

She recognized the name instantly. He was the ruthless tech mogul from the novel, the cold-blooded villain who ultimately put a bullet in his own head in the final act of the story.

You are currently occupying the body of his illegitimate daughter, the system stated, devoid of any empathy. The child who, after being sent away to a state orphanage tonight, is officially signed away by him at age two and later dies after being sold to human traffickers.

Hayley's tiny heart hammered against her ribs. The survival instinct kicked in, overriding the panic. She focused her thoughts, screaming internally at the machine. How do I change it? How do I survive?

Your ultimate mission is to prevent Edward McClure's self-destruction, the system replied. Step one: Survive tonight's abandonment crisis.

Before Hayley could process the terrifying weight of that task, a violent crash shattered the silence outside her room.

Porcelain shattered against a wall. The sound made her tiny body flinch involuntarily.

"Please, Mr. McClure! I'm sorry!" a woman's voice shrieked through the heavy wooden door. She sounded like she was begging for her life.

The air in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.

"Get out."

The man's voice was low, flat, and completely devoid of human warmth. It wasn't a shout, but the absolute authority in those two words cut off the woman's sobbing instantly.

Hayley's breath caught. That was him. Edward McClure. The tyrant. Her so-called father.

Red Alert, the system flashed in her mind. Edward McClure is on the verge of a manic episode. He is currently debating sending you to a state orphanage tonight.

Hayley tried to force her tear ducts to close. She knew crying would only anger him more. But the biological mechanics of a six-month-old infant were impossible to override. Hot tears spilled over her cheeks, and her chest hitched with uncontrollable sobs.

Heavy, measured footsteps approached the nursery door.

Each step sounded like a death knell. The oppressive weight of his presence bled through the wood.

Hayley's adult mind raced. She couldn't stop the crying, so she had to change the tone. She forced herself to swallow the loud wails, converting the terrified screams into soft, pathetic whimpers.

She held her breath until her face turned red, letting the tears pool heavily in her large eyes. She needed to look harmless. Pitiful.

The heavy mahogany door was shoved open.

Harsh, white light from the hallway flooded the dim nursery.

A towering shadow fell over the crib. The scent of expensive cologne mixed with a sharp hint of tobacco hit Hayley's nose, cold and intimidating.

Through her blurry, tear-filled vision, Hayley finally saw him.

Edward McClure's face was sculpted like a Greek statue, all sharp angles and hard lines, but his expression was pure ice. He stared down at her, not with the warmth of a new father, but with the deep, visceral disgust of a man looking at a rat in his pristine home.

He stepped back slightly, his nose wrinkling. The faint smell of baby formula in the room clearly repulsed him.

Warning, the system counted down. Patience level critical.

Hayley knew he was going to turn around and make the call to the orphanage. She bit down on her toothless gums, forcing her uncoordinated muscles to move.

She pushed one chubby arm out from under the blanket.

Fighting the heavy, sluggish feeling in her limbs, she reached her hand up into the empty air toward his chest. She let out a tiny, soft hiccup.

Edward's body froze.

He had already shifted his weight to leave, but the sight of that tiny hand reaching for him stopped him dead in his tracks.

He slowly turned his head back. His cold, gray-blue eyes locked onto the small, trembling fist suspended in the air. For a fraction of a second, the absolute disgust in his gaze fractured into raw confusion.