Reborn Matriarch: Shattering The Orphan's Mask
Christa discovered her adopted daughter Evelyn was sneaking around with a street thug named Dante.
When she furiously confronted her, Evelyn squeezed out a few tears and played the tragic, abused orphan.
"Mom is so cruel to me, I just want someone to love me," Evelyn cried to the men of the house, who instantly took her side.
Christa didn't realize her anger only gave the girl the perfect victim card. Evelyn manipulated the family's guilt to drain their wealth and orchestrate a massive corporate fraud.
When the authorities closed in, Evelyn let Christa's eldest daughter Julianna take the fall, sending her to federal prison.
The Stephenson family went completely bankrupt.
Christa's husband Grant, crushed by the betrayal and debt, jumped off a Manhattan skyscraper.
Until her family was entirely destroyed, Christa couldn't understand. They had given the orphan a home, a trust fund, and endless love.
Why did Evelyn treat them like easy marks? Why did she use their kindness as a weapon to tear them apart?
Opening her eyes again, Christa saw the heavy velvet drapes letting in the pale morning light.
She was back seven years ago, on the exact day she first caught Evelyn texting that thug.
This time, Christa wouldn't scream or fight. She would cut off the money, drop the rules, and watch the parasite dig her own grave.
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Chapter 6
The low, aggressive growl of a flat-six engine tore through the quiet morning air of the estate.
A silver Porsche 911 Carrera whipped around the circular driveway and slammed to a halt near the front steps. The driver's side door swung open.
Julianna stepped out. She wore a sharp, camel-colored trench coat and a pair of black Louboutin heels. The red soles flashed as she marched up the steps. She had just wrapped up a massive gallery exhibition in New York and drove through the night to spend the weekend in Boston.
Maura opened the door before Julianna could ring the bell.
"Welcome home, Miss Julianna," Maura said, taking the trench coat. There was a noticeable lightness in the housekeeper's face.
Julianna handed over her coat and paused. She inhaled. The air in the foyer felt different. The suffocating tension and the lingering smell of Evelyn's overly sweet vanilla perfume were entirely absent.
She walked into the sunlit breakfast room. Grant was reading the paper. Camren was staring blankly at a plate of scrambled eggs. Christa was sipping tea.
The fourth chair was empty.
Julianna pulled out her chair and sat down. She raised one perfectly arched eyebrow.
"Where is the tragic genius?" Julianna asked, her tone dripping with sarcasm. "Usually she's reciting Shakespeare and demanding everyone's attention by now."
Grant stopped turning the page of his newspaper. He let out a heavy sigh and didn't answer.
Camren kept his head down, his jaw tight, his eyes refusing to leave his plate.
Christa smiled. She picked up a plate of freshly baked blueberry pancakes and slid it across the table to her eldest daughter.
"She ran off to pursue her street romance last night," Christa said, her voice light and unbothered. "She won't be ruining our breakfast today."
Julianna caught the dangerous glint in her mother's eye. A slow, knowing smirk spread across Julianna's face.
The rest of the breakfast was a revelation. Nobody interrupted. Nobody manufactured a crisis. Grant actually put down his paper and talked to Camren about the Celtics game.
When the plates were cleared, Christa picked up a woven basket from the counter and walked out the back doors toward the glass greenhouse.
Julianna grabbed her coffee cup and followed.
The air inside the greenhouse was thick and humid, smelling strongly of damp earth and blooming Damask roses.
Christa picked up a pair of heavy steel pruning shears. She expertly positioned the blades around a dead, thorny branch.
Julianna leaned against the wooden potting bench. "Alright, Mom. Cut the act. You finally decided to stop putting up with the little parasite?"
Snap.
Christa cut the branch. She didn't look up as she detailed the events of the past twenty-four hours. She told Julianna about the recording, the dinner, the ultimatum, and Camren's breakdown in the study.
Julianna let out a harsh, bitter laugh. She set her coffee cup down hard on the wood.
"I always knew she was a leech," Julianna spat, adjusting her gold watch. "She's been playing Dad and Camren for years."
Christa stopped cutting. She turned to look at her eldest daughter. In her past life, Julianna had taken the fall for massive corporate fraud that Evelyn had orchestrated, spending years in a federal prison just to keep Grant out of it.
A sudden heat pricked the back of Christa's eyes. She dropped the shears into the basket. She stepped forward and wrapped her arms tightly around Julianna.
Julianna stiffened for a second, completely caught off guard by the physical affection. Then, she relaxed, wrapping her arms around her mother's shoulders.
"Don't worry, Mom," Julianna whispered. "I'm on your side."
Christa pulled back. The brief moment of vulnerability vanished, replaced by cold steel.
"We don't kick her out," Christa explained, her voice dropping. "We let her dig her own grave. We let her push until there is absolutely no sympathy left for her in this house."
Julianna's eyes lit up with predatory approval. "Give her enough rope to hang herself. I love it."
Before Christa could reply, the sound of frantic footsteps crunching on the gravel path echoed outside the glass walls.
Both women turned their heads.
Through the condensation on the glass, they saw Evelyn. Her hair was a tangled mess, her uniform was wrinkled, and her eyes were swollen red. She was sprinting toward the main house, looking like she had just survived a war zone.
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9.2
At the absolute summit of her pop-star career, the stage collapsed beneath Catherine's feet, plunging her into a mechanical black hole.
When she opened her eyes, she wasn't in a hospital, but a savage, primitive forest.
Before a fire-breathing beast could tear her apart, a massive black snake crushed it with a single strike.
The terrifying serpent then transformed into Amon, a towering, heavily scarred man with golden slitted eyes, who swore his life to protect her.
He brought her to his tribe, but instead of safety, they were met with ravenous hunger and disgust.
The tribe's males stared at Catherine's fragile human body like a rare breeding prize, while treating Amon like garbage.
"He's a cursed, cold-blooded freak! His rut will tear you to pieces!"
The Chief sneered, pointing a thick, accusing finger at Amon.
"By tribal law, you must mate with our strongest tiger and bear shifters to give us powerful cubs!"
Humiliated, Amon's broad shoulders slumped, his fists trembling in suffocating shame as he prepared to back away.
Catherine's heart pounded with fierce, burning anger.
When she was about to be eaten, Amon was the only one who bled for her.
Where were these arrogant bullies then? Why should she let them treat her savior like a monster?
As the tribe's strongest warriors swarmed forward to claim her, Catherine stepped directly in front of Amon's lethal claws.
"I don't need any of you," she declared, her voice cutting through the chaos.
"I will mate with Amon and take his beast mark today!"
9.5
Alina was the eldest daughter of the prestigious Padilla family, but everyone mocked her as a defective dud who couldn't cast a single spell.
The moment she woke up, her father and younger sister Karina barged into her room, demanding she sign a transfer agreement to the Aethelgard Order-the most brutal faction on the continent.
It wasn't just a transfer; it was a legal disownment. In her past life, Alina didn't realize Karina was also reborn. She had dropped to her knees and begged to stay. Her reward? Her magic was violently drained from her veins by her own family. Her fiancé drove a blade through her chest, and her sister stood over her bleeding body, smiling. She had ruined her hands making potions for them, only to be discarded like trash.
The phantom pain of her chest being ripped open still burned behind her ribs. Looking at the hypocritical family waiting for her tears, she felt nothing but exhausting disgust. Why should she ever be their stepping stone again?
"For the honor of the family, you leave today."
Her father sneered as she calmly bit her thumb and pressed her bloody fingerprint onto the contract. This time, Alina didn't cry. She packed a single bag and walked out the door, heading straight for the deadly Aethelgard Order to show them what a true monster looked like.
7.5
I am the biological daughter of the wealthy Fitzpatrick family, but I spent my childhood eating out of dumpsters.
When I was finally brought back to the estate at age seven, I thought I would experience my parents' love.
Instead, my biological parents looked at my dirty clothes with raw disgust. They only cared about Hallie, the fake daughter who lived like a princess.
The moment I walked in, Hallie hurled a heavy ceramic cup at my head, slicing my hand open.
"Get out of my house!"
My father didn't even look at the blood. He raised his hand to strike me, accusing me of bringing trailer park rules into his home.
In my past life, I dropped to my knees and begged for their forgiveness. I endured their abuse, hoping they would eventually love me.
But they let the maids humiliate me, let Hallie steal my identity, and eventually threw me back onto the streets to die. Even my playboy Uncle Byron, the only person who ever showed me mercy, was driven to suicide by them.
I didn't understand why my own flesh and blood hated me so much, or why a vicious liar deserved everything while I was treated like a jinx.
Opening my eyes again, I was back on the exact day I first returned to the estate.
As my father raised his hand to hit me, I didn't cower.
Instead, I looked at the family patriarch and pointed directly at my notorious, alcoholic uncle.
"I want him to be my new guardian."
9.4
I was the eldest daughter of the powerful Kirk family, sent away to a Swiss sanatorium to recover from my supposed mental illness.
But my stepmother, Johnie, never intended for me to get better. She sent her personal cleaners to drag me onto a plane back to Washington D.C.
In my past life, I didn't know they were assassins. I was forcefully injected with heavy sedatives and locked in a secret torture chamber inside our luxury estate.
My stepmother and cousin skimmed my inheritance while watching me suffer.
They framed me as a crazy addict, and my own father, a sitting Senator, turned a blind eye to protect his political career.
"Her political value is gone, just get rid of her quietly."
That was the last thing I heard my father say before I was brutally slaughtered by my own family.
Until my last breath, I couldn't understand why they hated me so much.
Why did my father let them force those pills down my throat?
Why was my life worth less than my stepmother's public image?
Opening my eyes again, the freezing sensation of lake water filling my lungs vanished.
I was back in the VIP room of the St. Moritz Sanatorium in 2023.
It was the exact morning before the cleaners walked through my door with uncapped syringes.
This time, I wouldn't just survive. I was going to cut the throat of the Kirk family.
8.0
My sister Rosalie always played the role of my gentle protector. On the night of my engagement, she insisted I take a secluded canyon road for my own safety.
In my past life, I didn't know it was a deadly trap. I fell for the staged ambush and the rival mobster, Julian, who took a fake bullet to "save" me.
Because of my blind trust, my entire Falcone bloodline was annihilated overnight. My father was beheaded, my brothers were gunned down, and my sweet little sister was left to die in a filthy alley. I was even brainwashed into betraying my new husband, Damien Moretti. I shot the only man who truly protected me right through the heart, just before Rosalie drowned me in a freezing lake, laughing as she confessed she was just a bastard child stealing my life.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the very night my nightmare began. I was trapped in a penthouse, a lethal drug melting my sanity, pinned beneath Damien. But after he brutally sweat the poison out of my veins, he didn't look at me with love. He handed me a Plan B pill with a gaze full of ancient, chilling hatred.
"Swallow it," he commanded, his voice a sheet of ice.
He remembers. The Dark Don remembers the past life where I murdered him. But this time, I won't be a pawn. I wiped the blood of my traitorous maid from my hands, ready to drag my fake sister straight to hell.
9.7
Agent Alivia Sanford opened her eyes to the suffocating stench of wild animal musk and raw sex.
She hadn't just transmigrated into a savage beastman world; she had woken up in the body of a 300-pound, diseased, and universally despised woman. Worse, the original owner had just drugged the tribe's strongest warrior, trying to force a mating.
Now, the warrior pinned her to the cave floor with murderous fury.
"You think you can trap me, you disgusting pig?" he snarled, ready to rip her throat out.
After kneeing him and escaping, a "Super Charm AI" bound to her mind demanded she conquer her five designated mates to survive. But these men treated her like a walking plague. They mocked her bloated face, threw bloody raw meat into the mud for her to eat, and publicly announced they would starve her to death. Even her own family looked at her with utter disgust.
In her past life, she was a legendary survivor who could have crushed these arrogant men with her bare hands. Now, she was trapped in a weak shell, threatened with soul erasure by a system if she didn't grovel for their affection. Why should she beg for love from beasts who wanted her dead?
Looking at the five "-100" hostility scores on her system panel, Alivia coldly drew a mental cross over each of their faces. Enduring agonizing pain, she forced her bio-manipulation ability to violently purge the toxins from her fat body. She wasn't going to play their twisted game; she was going to find her own resources and make them pay.