Carla Magdalena cradled her abdomen, the pain from Ivanka's kick still blazing through her.

"I've told you — stay away from Bastian. He's mine. Only mine. You're not worthy of him, and besides — he despises you!!" Ivanka's lip curled into a sneer as she looked down at Carla crumpled on the floor.

"Un... Uncle...!" Carla's hand reached up weakly into the air. Through the blur of tears, she watched Bastian's retreating figure grow smaller — walking away, leaving the room without so much as a glance back.

Tears ran freely down Carla's face. The pain in her body was nothing against the pain of watching Bastian trust Ivanka — trust her enough to let her cousin "discipline" her for being too possessive of her guardian.

He hadn't listened. When she had begged him to handle it himself — when she had pleaded that it should be him, not Ivanka — he had simply walked away.

Ivanka grabbed a fistful of Carla's hair and wrenched her head back, forcing Carla to look up at her.

"What kind of face is that? You look like a circus clown. No wonder everyone's disgusted by you. Even Bastian can't stand the sight of you. You worthless little bastard!!" She ground her heel down onto Carla's hand until Carla screamed.

"You bitch! Get your foot off me!" Carla's voice shook — weak and fury-raw — as the pain in her hand became unbearable.

Smack!

"You dare curse at me?! You orphan! I'll give you a lesson your mouth will never forget!!"

"Smack! Smack! Smack!"

Ivanka struck her across the face again and again until blood welled at the corner of Carla's mouth.

Carla wept, but even through the pain, she despised herself most of all. She had been so foolish — so desperately, blindly in love with Bastian, a man who would sooner believe Ivanka's poison than anything she ever said.

Her tears kept coming, soaking her face. Her body was on fire, and somewhere underneath the physical agony lived a deeper wound that refused to close.

She was so exhausted. Ten years of loving her adoptive uncle — the man her parents had entrusted with her care before they died, the man meant to protect her in their absence.

Bastian Kenneth had entered Carla's life when she was seven and he was seventeen, the year her father adopted him as his younger brother. From that moment, their family became his.

The first time Carla's heart stirred toward Bastian was when she was twelve — awkward, bright-eyed, on the cusp of something she didn't yet have words for. He was twenty-two.

By seventeen, she stopped hiding it.

At first, Bastian hadn't seemed to mind. He'd tolerated her following him everywhere, clinging to his side, orbiting him like she had nowhere else to be.

Then Ivanka arrived.

And Bastian changed.

He began believing everything Ivanka told him. He let Ivanka mock Carla to her face — in front of him. He simply stood there and allowed it.

"Aaah!!" Carla cried out as Ivanka seized her by the hair and slammed her skull against the floor.

A sharp sting bloomed across her forehead. She felt the warmth of blood before she saw the blur spreading at the edge of her vision.

Her limbs felt heavier than they should. She remembered, distantly, that she hadn't eaten in days — because Ivanka had denied her food as part of Bastian's punishment.

Bastian had locked her in her room for embarrassing him in front of a business associate. She had barged in on a meeting, furious that it had run so long he'd missed their lunch together. He had responded by handing her over to Ivanka's supervision.

Ivanka hadn't missed the opportunity. She starved Carla, tormented her, then lied to Bastian — telling him Carla was refusing to eat unless Bastian came personally to coax her.

Bastian had only grown angrier. He extended the punishment and stayed away entirely.

"Cry all you want. Your tears mean nothing to him. He will never love you — not now, not ever. He loves only me. My hold over him is absolute — he has no interest in any other woman. You poor, pathetic thing. You'd be better off dead. At least then you'd stop interfering with us." Ivanka looked at her with the satisfied expression of someone who had already won.

Thud!!

The kick hit Carla full in the stomach, and her body crumpled like a discarded sack.

"Uuugh!!"

Carla retched blood. The room around her dissolved into gray fog, and her arms would no longer support her weight.

Ivanka watched with cold delight, visibly pleased by what she saw.

"Give her the medicine." She directed the words at a woman standing nearby, holding a glass.

"Yes, Miss." The woman moved forward.

Carla was forced to drink.

With what little remained of her strength, she twisted her face away, tried to knock the glass aside — anything to keep it from reaching her mouth.

But two servants held her down, gripping her wrists and jaw. The liquid slipped past her lips and down her throat.

"Cough — cough—" Carla choked as the last of it went down. She tried to force it back up, heaving weakly against the burning in her chest.

"Ha ha ha...!" Ivanka's laughter was bright and merciless.

"Enjoy it! Die in there! Bastian belongs to me — he always has. Only I deserve to be Mrs. Kenneth!!" Ivanka's expression was triumphant as she watched Carla writhe, the poison already working its way through her.

"Uncle...* Carla's lips barely moved. I'm sorry I ever loved you. If there's a second chance" another life "I won't fall for you again. I want to live for myself. I want to find happiness far away from you. I want to find a man who loves me for exactly who I am.* Her thoughts came slow and fractured, like the last sparks of a dying fire. I hate you. I hate you so much."

More tears. They slid down her sunken cheeks as the pain claimed every corner of her.

She was so tired. So unbearably tired.

Carla's vision went dark at the edges. The world contracted to a thin, dim band. Through it, she watched Ivanka turn and walk out of the room, still laughing, her footsteps bright and carefree.

Then there was nothing.

Even her hearing began to fail her. Somewhere far away, a voice was calling her name — but it reached her as if traveling through deep water, muffled, distorted, growing dimmer with each pulse.

Then her ears sealed shut completely. No sound at all.

Dark. Hushed. Nothing.

...

"Hahh — hahh — hahh—!"

Carla jolted upright, gasping. Her chest seized, desperate for air, and she grabbed at her surroundings before she even knew where she was.

Cold sweat soaked her hair, beading at her temple and running down her forehead.

Her whole body ached. Just moments ago — it had felt so real — being pinned down, a liquid fire poured into her throat, burning through her chest and gut, her limbs locked and useless.

She blinked, breathing hard, and looked around.

"Is this... my room?" she murmured, confused. She turned in place, taking it in. "What happened? I was just — I couldn't feel anything. I couldn't feel anything at all."

She reached for the small desk calendar beside her bed.

"Hah??" Her eyes went wide. The date and year — it was last year. "I... am I back? Did I wake up from my own death??"

She lurched out of bed and ran to the vanity mirror.

"Hah??" She recoiled at her reflection — the thick, garish makeup plastered across her face, the clown-like excess of it. "I'm... back. I came back."

She looked at herself — at her body, her face, the date on the calendar — and understood. She had been reborn. Set back exactly one year. To the point where Ivanka had first begun inserting herself between Carla and Bastian.

She remembered. Ivanka had shoved her into the pool, then spun it as Carla performing for attention, staging her own fall to frame Ivanka and get her thrown out of the Miller estate.

And Bastian had believed every word.

A cold curve came to Carla's mouth. Because that was exactly the Bastian she remembered.

Well. Not this time.

This time, she would let Bastian and Ivanka have each other. Let them get married, for all she cared. She would change her own fate — step away, step out, and build a life entirely her own.

"God, I really do look like a clown." Carla stared into the mirror. This — all of this — was what happened when she let Ivanka dress her, advise her, guide her style choices. She'd become a punchline. "I'm going to fix this. How did I ever trust anything that woman said to me?"

She shook her head at her reflection, then moved to the basin and began scrubbing the makeup from her face — all of it, down to bare skin, not a trace left.

When she looked up again, she nearly didn't recognize herself.

The face in the mirror was stunning. Porcelain skin, clean and luminous, with a natural glow she'd been burying for years under layers of Ivanka's suggestions.

"I never even looked," she said softly, almost to herself. "I was so busy chasing him, I never actually looked at my own face."

The realization settled. Ivanka had always known — she had seen Carla's beauty before Carla ever did. And so she had coached Carla into garish makeup, outrageous fashion, outrageous everything — burying the competition before it knew it existed.

"Not this time." Carla held her own gaze in the mirror. "I'm done being stupid. I want to enjoy my life. I don't care what Bastian and that snake get up to — they can fawn over each other in front of me, and I won't feel a thing. I refuse to die twice."

She moved to her wardrobe, threw it open — and stopped cold.

"Oh, good grief."

Every piece she owned was an explosion of color. Loud prints, shiny fabrics, silhouettes that screamed for attention in all the wrong ways. Ivanka's curated disaster, hanging there in full glory.

Carla had been color-blind to it. Manipulated blind.

She began pulling garments off hangers, dropping them to the floor one by one.

"Tina!!" she called out.

A maid appeared in the doorway a moment later, slightly breathless. "Miss! You've woken up — I didn't realize you'd come around from your faint, Miss?"

Then she stopped dead, blinking at Carla. "Si — si — who are you?!"

"What's wrong with you?" Carla crossed the room toward her. "Take a look at who's standing in this room."

"Hah! You — you're Miss Carla!!"

"Obviously. Who else would be in this room?" Carla fixed her with a flat look. "Did you need an introduction?"

"I — I'm so sorry, Miss, you look so... different. I didn't recognize you at first. You're so beautiful, I genuinely didn't know it was you!" Tina pressed her hands together, genuinely flustered.

"Enough of that. Get rid of all of this." Carla swept an arm toward the pile of clothes. "Every piece. I don't want a single item left in my room."

"Yes, Miss." Tina gave a quick nod.

Carla surveyed her walk-in closet. Half the rail space stood empty now — Ivanka's selections, her curated wardrobe of garish clothes and clashing shoes, cleared out in a single sweep.

What remained were the pieces Carla had bought for herself before Ivanka had begun making herself at home in the Miller estate.

Miller — her father's name. His family's name. The mansion and the Miller Group had been his, and when both her parents died, it was Bastian who had stepped in to run what her father had built.

Carla pulled a knee-length dress from the rail — clean lines, elasticated waist, nothing theatrical.

She put it on.

The difference was immediate. She looked like herself. Bright-faced, effortlessly put together — a young woman who didn't need a costume to be noticed.

She picked up her small bag, checked that she had what she needed, and headed for the door.

She remembered how this day went, in her first life. After she came around from her fall into the pool, Ivanka had swept in with Bastian in tow, ready to spin another story. Bastian would hear Ivanka's version — that Carla had thrown herself in deliberately, trying to frame Ivanka and have her expelled from the estate. He would believe it. He would shove Carla away, cold-eyed, while Ivanka spoke in that soft, wounded voice she had perfected.

Carla had no desire to stand in that scene again.

She was done. And now that she knew exactly what was coming — down to the minute — she was going to be long gone before any of it could happen.

Her plan was simple: find an apartment, find part-time work, build something that was entirely hers.

She didn't want to share a roof with Bastian anymore. She knew the Miller estate was her inheritance — her father's house, her family's legacy — but Bastian was the one who ran it. Had been running it for five years, since the accident that took both her parents.

And Bastian had done well with it. Better than well — under his management, the Miller Group had expanded internationally, and the estate ran with an efficiency her parents would have admired.

She held no grudge about that. If anything, she respected it. She was the legitimate heir, Frederick Miller's only daughter — but she knew nothing about running a business. If she tried to take it back now, she'd ruin everything her father had built.

So she wouldn't touch it.

She just wanted her own life. Her own happiness. Her own distance from Bastian Kenneth.

"Miss, where are you going?" Tina appeared at the doorway, watching Carla with an expression she couldn't quite hide.

"Out. Don't follow me. Stay here and answer Bastian's questions if he comes asking where I am." Carla kept her voice level.

What's happened to her?* Tina thought, visibly bewildered. She was so eager to see Mr. Bastian — wasn't she? Just yesterday, that was all she wanted.*

"I'll be back late," Carla added over her shoulder as she walked out.

"Late? Miss, you're going somewhere that late? You never leave the estate, let alone come home at night!" Tina hurried after her, but Carla was already moving — quick, purposeful, unbothered.

She didn't stop.

She'd been given a second chance. She was not going to waste another second of it chasing a man who had never deserved her.

She was still young. The road ahead was long. There was time — real time — to love someone who actually loved her back.

Right now, though, she simply wanted to enjoy it.

Voices drifted from the corridor as she neared her room — Ivanka's voice, Bastian close behind. On time, just as she'd known they would be.

She ducked back into an alcove and waited, pressed against the wall, until she heard the sound of her own door opening and closing behind them.

Then she moved. Half-running down the staircase, light on her feet, grinning to herself in a way she hadn't felt entitled to in years — like a bird released from a cage she'd built herself.

She walked out the front door of the Miller estate, and didn't look back.