It was a complete accident that my sister and I ended up saving the life of a wealthy socialite after her car wreck. Mrs. Eleanor Albright—Ellie, as she insisted we call her—knew our family was struggling. As a gesture of gratitude, she offered us two separate roads to a future neither of us could have dreamed of. One path: marry her only son and heir, and eventually inherit the family’s considerable assets. The other: an immediate, life-altering cash reward of five million dollars. My sister, Sasha, chose the man without hesitation. She even broke off her long-term engagement with the man she was supposed to marry, convinced that a husband with a nine-figure net worth far outstripped the value of a mere five million. What she didn’t know was that the seemingly quiet, slightly awkward heir was a paranoid, obsessive sadist. Less than a year later, he had tormented her to the point of a complete nervous breakdown. I, on the other hand, took the five million, used it to earn a stack of glittering degrees abroad, and returned to the States to start my own business. I caught the right trend, met the right investors, and my career took off. I had a line of successful, eligible bachelors waiting for my attention. Then I opened my eyes again. Sasha and I were sitting primly on the edge of the sofa across from Ellie Albright. On Ellie’s left sat her handsome, quiet son, and on her right, a five-million-dollar check lay on the mahogany table. “Maya, Sasha, which of you will choose first?” Ellie asked, her smile warm and gentle. This time, my sister was just as quick to raise her hand and speak first, but her gaze was fixed, not on the man, but on the five-million-dollar check. In that instant, I knew. She had been reborn, too. 1 “Maya, Sasha, I’m a straightforward woman, so I won’t beat around the bush,” Ellie had said. “This is my son, Dean Albright. He had a rough time growing up, so he’s a little… reserved. Not much interest in running the family business, either. So, I’m looking for a daughter-in-law who can eventually become my successor. For the other sister, I’ll offer a one-time gift of five million dollars. I’ll give you a moment to decide, how does that sound?” Ellie’s words triggered a sudden, sickening flash of memory, a blood-soaked montage of the past. I knew. I was back. The last memory of my previous life was the blinding white ceiling of the asylum, moments before a wild-eyed, disheveled Sasha suddenly shoved me over the seventh-story balcony railing. The crushing impact that followed. I could almost hear the splat of blood and fluid from my ears, mixed with Sasha’s ragged, hysterical scream: “Why! Maya, why do you get to have it all? That luck should have been mine! I chose wrong, and you just picked up the scraps!” Sasha had blamed her own misery entirely on me. But in that past life, she had been the one to choose the Albright marriage, the one who wanted to be the glittering heiress, even throwing over her fiancé to do it. Who could have known that the seemingly gentle and scholarly Dean Albright was, at his core, a sadistic sociopath? On their wedding night, he had tied her to the bed and lectured her for hours on Lagrange’s Equations. After the lecture, he’d test her on the application and calculus. One mistake, one fingernail. The next night, it was Newton-Leibniz. Fail again, one tooth. Of course, she only told me this when she was completely broken, delivered to a state hospital, and shrieking hysterically during my visits. I had been full of pity, determined to help her escape her torture and seek justice. But I never realized her greatest pain wasn’t the abuse itself—it was the fact that I hadn’t shared her fate. Instead, I was thriving, living a life she felt should have been hers. It was this bottomless envy and twisted logic that made her toss me off that building, ignoring the bond of sisterhood and blood. Reborn, sitting across from Ellie and Dean, my palms were slick with cold sweat. I swore that this time, I would not involve myself in Sasha’s life. I would not visit her in the asylum. I would get my education, build my fortune, and bring my grandmother abroad to retire in peace. And just as I expected, Sasha’s hand shot up first. She had to choose first. It had always been this way—a poor family, limited resources, and her need to always snatch first, never concede. My naturally easy-going nature always made me yield. But this time, I held the crucial information. I watched her, unhurried, calm. “Mrs. Albright, I actually have a boyfriend,” Sasha said, looking directly at the check. “I really think a promising, excellent man like Dean should be saved for my sister. I’d like to take the five million dollars.” An earthquake went off in my chest. My pupils dilated. I knew Sasha. Greedy. Arrogant. Hated hard work. Five million dollars would be burned through quickly. How could a mere cash payout compare to the limitless wealth and prestige of a family matriarch, the very thing that had lured her the first time? Yet this time, she didn’t spare Dean a glance. Her eyes were glued to the check. She leaned into me, took the check, and whispered into my ear, her voice laced with venom, “Maya. This time, it’s your turn to get a taste.” In that flash, I understood. She had been reborn, and her hatred was still fully intact. 2 It turned out that just before I died, I heard a second thud moments after I hit the ground—it was her body, following mine. She had planned to take me with her, her hatred so total that she couldn’t bear to die without dragging me down as well. Now, Sasha had preempted me, grabbing the immediate cash benefit while ruthlessly maneuvering to push me into the fire. “Dean is very private,” she explained to Ellie with a saccharine smile. “He loves to read, especially math. Luckily, my sister Maya is a total academic. I’m sure they’ll have so much in common.” Marry Dean Albright? Become the plaything of her former life’s tormentor, while she took five million to live happily ever after? I had been reborn, not lobotomized. So, while Sasha was distracted, I snatched the check—which she hadn’t even fully warmed in her hands—with the speed of a striking viper. I handed it back to Ellie, neat and respectful. “Mrs. Albright, thank you for your generosity, and Mr. Albright’s good intentions. But we simply cannot accept a gift this valuable,” I said. “Though we don’t have much, Grandma taught us to be honest and kind. Saving you was just the decent thing to do. Please, keep the check.” I stood up, sparing a quick glance at Dean, who sat silently beside his mother. Honestly, the man was peak handsome. If I hadn’t lived through the first life, who would ever believe that such a clean-cut, reserved exterior housed a brain as convoluted and toxic as a clogged drain? Sasha thought she had the perfect script, snatching the reward while pushing me into the abyss? No. We were going to practice the great American virtue of altruism: no one gets the prize. 3 “Maya, are you insane?!” Back home, Sasha unleashed a torrent of abuse. “Ellie Albright is worth hundreds of millions! Dean is her only son! He’s awkward and won’t run the company—she’s clearly grooming his wife to be her successor! How could you throw that away?” Sasha desperately tried to sell me on it. “Even if you don’t care about us, think about Grandma. She raised us alone. She’s seventy, still hauling trash and selling street food late into the night. She’s only thinking of saving money for our future. Don’t you want to give her a decent life?” I gave a serene smile. “I graduate next year. I’m confident I can find a great job and take care of her. I’m not marrying him, Sasha. If you want the marriage so badly, why don’t you marry Dean Albright?” “Don’t make this difficult for me!” Sasha looked tearful. “You know I’ve been with Travis for nearly a year! Do you think I’d betray him just to be with Dean? Ellie gave us three days to reconsider. Maya, just say yes to Dean. Otherwise, it looks like we’re taking the money and rejecting the man, like we’re insulting him. It’s so awkward.” I had to suppress a laugh. She had the audacity to talk about awkwardness after kicking her poor, unsuspecting fiancé to the curb in the last life. But no sooner had I chased Sasha out of my room than Grandma collapsed. She passed out while closing up her food stall. At the hospital, the situation was critical. The doctor said it was an acute allergic reaction that triggered a stroke, exacerbated by her long-term diabetes. They couldn’t figure out the allergen. And when Grandma collapsed, Sasha was the only one there. What Grandma ate, only Sasha knew. 4 The ICU costs were staggering—ten thousand dollars a day. By the third day, my modest savings were gone. Sasha wouldn’t answer my calls, so I sent her a simple text: I’m going to sign the prenuptial agreement with Mrs. Albright. Sure enough, like a jack-in-the-box, she appeared right on time at our designated cafe. I agreed to marry Ellie’s son, Dean Albright. Sasha got the five million dollars, with the condition that she use half of it immediately for Grandma’s medical expenses. Sasha readily agreed. I knew that the loss of half the money was far less satisfying than the vision of me married to her personal psycho-tormentor. A week later, Grandma was safely moved out of the ICU and into a regular room. She was out of danger. I signed the marriage license with Dean and moved with him into the small villa Ellie had bought us. On our wedding night, I laid out my props: a portable whiteboard, dry-erase markers, and a stack of advanced mathematics textbooks. When Dean emerged from the bathroom, his face was quite literally paler than frost. My inner self chuckled. Two can play this game, psycho. I’ll walk your path so you can’t. “What is this?” Dean’s throat bobbed. Maybe I’d set the thermostat too high. He walked to the bedside table, picked up the water, and drank the whole glass down. I sat cross-legged on the bed, looking innocent and compliant. “Why, it’s the stimulating game only adults are qualified to play.” Calculus. Dean’s brows furrowed further. I strutted to the whiteboard, wrote down a complex ? ( ? ) f(x) equation, and turned to him. “Where should we start? Partial differential equations? Limits? Newton-Leibniz is basic entry-level stuff. Or maybe I should challenge you a bit? Have you looked at the existence of Yang–Mills and the Mass Gap, or maybe the Navier–Stokes equation?” Before I could finish my wicked string of numbers, my mouth was fiercely covered by his warm, aggressive lips. 5 “Wait—not… not like this!” I was completely blindsided. What the hell was Dean Albright doing? I pulled my mouth away from his soft, invasive kiss long enough to gasp out, “Y-You can’t do this, Dean! This isn’t how wedding nights are supposed to go!” He braced himself with a muscled forearm beside my head, his dark eyes looking down at me, full of passion. “Do you know how unbelievably sexy you are when you say ‘Navier–Stokes equation’?” he murmured. “Right now, all I want to study is the limit of negative distance deviation with you.” Limit? Negative… negative distance? Hold the phone! The next morning, I woke up nestled in Dean’s firm arms. He was still asleep, exhausted from the night’s effort. Sunlight slipped through the sheer white curtains, spilling onto his thick eyelashes. They fluttered faintly with his steady breathing. My face flushed as I replayed every detail of the previous night. I was utterly confused. Sasha’s psycho? He had been crazy and intense, yes. But he had been gentle, had asked about my feelings, and had solicitously carried me to the shower afterward. Aside from a weird fetish for following the Fibonacci sequence in his rhythm, he wasn't nearly as terrifying as Sasha had described. Could he have figured out my intentions and was deliberately holding back, trying to lure me into a false sense of security? I smoothly reached under the pillow and pulled out my multi-purpose defense kit, running my hand over the pepper spray, the Swiss Army knife, and the stun gun. Just then, Dean’s eyes snapped open. I froze, squeezing a “Good morning” smile onto my face. What I didn’t expect was for Dean to suddenly surge forward, his eyes bloodshot, his hands locking around my neck with terrifying strength. “I am not—I am not useless!” “Say that—say that again! I’ll kill you!” His sudden, vicious assault left me stunned. I slumped back, my hands scrabbling uselessly at his wrists. “No… please…” “Dean, l-let go…” Just as I thought I was about to suffocate, he abruptly deflated, the murderous rage instantly draining from him. He fell back, holding me, but I was already coughing, fighting for breath. “Maya, I… I just…” “Don’t touch me!” I shrieked.
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