The Rebirth of a Betrayal

Sylvie

The beeping is the only thing that proves I’m alive. A slow, steady rhythm in the cold, sterile air. Each beat is a victory, each breath a struggle against the crushing weight on my chest. I can’t move my head. I can’t feel my legs. There is only the pain, a dull, thrumming monster that has eaten my body from the inside out.

In the corner of the room, a television mounted to the wall flickers. The volume is low, a meaningless murmur. Until I see his face. Marcus. My husband. His dark hair is perfectly styled, his jaw tight with what a stranger might call grief. He stands at a podium, the Crane Industries logo displayed behind him like a shield.

“It has been an impossibly difficult time for all of us,” he says, his voice smooth, practiced. The voice he uses for shareholders, not for me. “Sylvie was the light of my life. Her tragic accident has left a void that can never be filled.”

My breath hitches. A machine beside me protests with a frantic, high pitched alarm. A nurse I can’t see says something soothing, but I don’t hear her. I can only watch the screen.

Marin glides to Marcus’s side. My best friend. My maid of honor. She places a delicate hand on his arm, a gesture of support that looks more like an act of possession. Her blonde hair shines under the press lights, a perfect halo for a perfect vulture.

“Sylvie was more than a friend,” Marin says, her voice trembling with expertly feigned sorrow. “She was the sister I never had. We shared everything.”

Oh, you did, didn't you? The thought is a flicker of heat in the frozen landscape of my mind.

A reporter from the back calls out. “Mr. Crane, what does this mean for the planned merger between Crane Industries and Croft Consolidated?”

Marcus clears his throat. “Now is a time for mourning, of course. But Sylvie was a businesswoman above all else. She knew this merger was the future. It was her dream.” He looks at Marin, a deep, meaningful gaze I haven’t received from him in years. “And we will honor her dream. The merger will proceed. It is what she would have wanted.”

I try to scream. No sound comes out. The beeping beside me grows faster, a frantic drumbeat for the final act of my life.

Another reporter shouts a question. “There are rumors of more than just a business partnership. Can you comment on your relationship, personally?”

Marcus holds up a hand to quiet the room. He turns to Marin and takes her hand in his. Their fingers intertwine. He lifts her hand, the one without a ring, and brings it to his lips. “Marin has been my rock through this unimaginable loss. She understands what Sylvie meant to me, and what our future together was supposed to be.”

He faces the cameras again, Marin tucked neatly under his arm. “In the spirit of moving forward, of honoring life and legacy, Marin and I are pleased to announce our engagement.”

The world stops. The beeping, the pain, the cold. Everything vanishes except for their two smiling faces on that screen. Engagement. He’s been a widower for less than a week. The car crash was six days ago.

The camera zooms in on Marin. She looks down, a mask of shy, sorrowful duty on her face. Then, for just a fraction of a second, her eyes lift. She looks directly into the lens, as if she knows I’m here, watching. As if she’s looking right at me.

And she smiles.

It’s not a big smile. It is small, private, and filled with more venomous triumph than I have ever seen. It’s the smile of a predator that has just finished its meal. In that tiny, fleeting expression, I see everything. Her phone call right before I got in the car, telling me to take the old country road because of an accident on the highway. The strange sluggishness of the brakes I’d dismissed as needing a service. The way she’d always looked at Marcus when she thought I wasn’t watching.

It wasn’t an accident.

It was an execution.

You killed me.

The thought is my last. The triumphant, gloating face of my best friend is the last thing I see before the steady beep beside my head dissolves into one long, unbroken tone. Darkness swallows me whole.

I awaken with a gasp, a scream tearing from my throat. My lungs burn, desperate for air. I’m not cold. I’m warm, tangled in something impossibly soft. Silk. My hands fly up to my face, my throat, my chest. There are no tubes. No bandages. No pain. Just smooth, unblemished skin.

The air smells of freesia and linen, the signature scent of my laundry service. Sunlight streams through a familiar bay window, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air. My bedroom. My perfect, cream and gold bedroom.

My heart hammers against my ribs, a wild bird trapped in a cage. This can’t be. It’s a dream. A dying hallucination. A fever dream of a heaven that looks exactly like my old life.

I throw the heavy duvet off and stumble out of bed, my legs surprisingly strong beneath me. My reflection in the ornate, floor length mirror stops my breath. It’s me. But it’s a younger me. There are no faint lines of stress around my eyes, no hint of the weariness that had settled deep into my bones over the last year. My face is fresh, my eyes clear. I look… happy. Naive.

My gaze falls to the nightstand beside my bed. My phone rests in its charging cradle. With a trembling hand, I pick it up. My thumb hovers over the home button, terrified of what I’ll find.

I press it.

The screen illuminates. The date glows in crisp, white letters.

October 14th. Three years ago.

“No,” I whisper, the word a dry rasp. “It’s not possible.”

But it is. Because I know this day. My stomach clenches with a phantom memory, a ghost of excitement. This is the morning of my engagement party. My first one. The one where I, giddy and blind with love, would stand beside Marcus and announce our future to the world. A future that would end with me broken and bleeding in a wrecked car at the bottom of a ravine.

The memory of the hospital room, of Marin’s smile, isn’t faded like a dream. It’s seared onto the back of my eyelids, more real than the plush Aubusson carpet beneath my bare feet. I can still feel the cold seeping into my veins, hear the final, damning flatline.

I raise my left hand. The diamond engagement ring Marcus gave me winks in the sunlight, a brilliant, three carat lie. In my first life, this ring was my most prized possession. A symbol of everything I thought I wanted. Now, it feels like a manacle. A brand. The first link in a chain that led directly to my murder.

They thought they had won. They stood on my grave and toasted to their new empire, built with my money, my name, my life. They took everything from me.

But they made one mistake.

They didn’t make sure I stayed dead.

A slow, cold smile spreads across my face, an expression my reflection has never worn before. It’s a chilling echo of the one I saw on Marin’s face. The shock and fear in my gut are burning away, forged into something hard and sharp. Something useful.

This isn’t a second chance at life. This isn’t a miracle to be grateful for.

It’s a second chance for vengeance.

I will not be the trusting, gentle Sylvie they remember. That girl is dead, buried in a future they created for her. The woman who wears her face now knows all their secrets. She knows every weakness, every lie, every betrayal they haven't even committed yet.

I walk to my closet and pull open the heavy doors. Rows of designer dresses hang in perfect order. I reach for the white Chanel dress I had planned to wear tonight. The dress of a blushing, happy fiancée.

My fingers brush against it, then pull back as if burned.

No. Not that one.

My eyes scan the rack, past the pastels and the creams, landing on a sleek, black Armani gown. It’s a dress I bought for a gala I never attended. Severe. Elegant. Unforgiving.

The dress of a woman going to war.

This time, I will not be the victim in their story. I will be the author of their downfall. I will dismantle their world, piece by glittering, fraudulent piece. I will take back my company, my legacy, and my life. And I will make them watch, just as they made me watch.

Marin’s smile was the last thing I saw in my last life.

I intend to be the last thing she sees in this one.