Chapter 1

Olivia

Regret tastes like the blood in my mouth and the stench of petrol burning my lungs.

A cough rips through me, sharp and wet. Chains dig into my wrists, the cold metal biting deep, cutting skin. The smell of mold clings to everything in the warehouse, mixing with gasoline soaking the floor beneath me. My knees scream from hours on the concrete, swollen, bruised.

Click. Clack.

The sharp sound of heels slices through the silence. My head pounds, a dull ache of agony, but I force myself to look up.

“Well, well, well… I see you’re enjoying your stay here, my darling Liv.”

Hate churns in my throat, a bitter and corrosive bile, as my eyes meet Kaylee’s.

She looks unbothered—like she didn’t just have me beaten half to death. A cruel smirk stretches her lips, her dark eyes shiny with wicked amusement.

“Oh, c’mon, don’t look at me like that.” She tsks, her voice laced with mock pity as she struts closer.

“Why?” My voice is a shaky whisper, barely more than a breath, as fresh blood spills from my split lips. The deep gash by my ribs pulses with pain. “Why, Kaylee? Why?!”

She doesn’t flinch. Instead, she pulls a chair closer, dragging it with an ear-piercing screech across the concrete before lowering herself into it with the grace of a queen addressing a peasant.

Her red lips curl higher. She looks like the devil.

“You were always such a naive little fool. You know, it was very easy to manipulate you. Your family, your property, everything. You gave in so easily. Such a gullible idiot!” she laughs, her voice sharp enough to draw blood.

I squeeze my eyes shut against the rising dizziness.

“I gave you everything you ever wanted!” I try to shout back, but the words come out weak, breathless, like a dying whisper.

The cold, the hunger, the pain—it’s all catching up to me. My body’s shutting down, I can feel it.

“I never treated you as my bestfriend, Kaylee. I always saw you as a sister—my sister.”

“Oh, shut up, Olivia!”

The chair scrapes backward as she launches to her feet, and before I can react, her palm slams across my cheek with a force that whips my head sideways. A sharp sting explodes across my skin, white-hot pain shooting through my skull.

“I was always in the backlight! Always little miss second choice—all because of you! You gave me your scraps, and you call me a sister?! To hell with that!”

I stare at her, breathless, my vision swimming.

How did things get to this?

Kaylee. My best friend. My childhood companion. The person who once swore she’d take a bullet for me.

Betrayal, anger, and something else—something raw, and bleeding—burn in my lungs.

“You are a selfish witch,” I say slowly, my voice steady despite the fire raging in my veins. My stare is ice, pure venom dripping from every word.

Kaylee barks out a laugh, tilting her head like she’s enjoying a private joke.

“Selfish? You call me selfish? Hmm.” She taps her lips, pretending to think. "Maybe I am. But at least I'm not a cold, unfeeling monster who turned her back on the only person who ever truly loved her—right up until his last breath!"

My stomach turns violently.

Sebastian.

My pulse thrums, a slow and painful drumbeat inside my skull.

"W-what do you mean… dead?"

The words scrape my throat, barely making it out. My lungs refuse to work properly, the air around me suddenly too thick to breathe. She grins wider, her eyes wide with…happiness.

“What? Feeling sad now? You never really loved him, though. Or did you forget the scar you burned into him forever? You didn’t seem so broken up about it then.”

“That was your idea, Kaylee!” I argue, voice rising, but the words taste like rust and regret. The weight of my past choices coils around my chest like a snake, tightening, suffocating.

“What did you do with him?”

The warehouse blurs around me, shifting into the day I was kidnapped.

The assassin. The gunshot. The moment I realized Sebastian had pushed me away.

I see him—his face twisted in pain, his hands reaching for me as blood soaked his shirt.

I didn’t even have a chance to scream before someone yanked me back, bound my hands, and shoved a sack over my head.

The last thing I saw was him.

Sad, desperate eyes watching me disappear.

I’d always hated him. Despised him. Loathed every breath he took.

So why?

Why the hell did he throw himself in front of that bullet for me?

A violent shiver wracks my body, rage twisting inside me, clawing its way up my throat. I gather the last bit of strength in my battered body and lunge at her, the chains cutting deeper into my skin.

“I’ll kill you, you bitch!”

Pain explodes through my gut as someone's foot collides with my stomach. I fly backward, crashing against the cold concrete floor, my already shredded wrists yanked cruelly by the chains.

A choked cry rips from my lips as fresh blood gushes from my mouth, staining my chin, my neck. Every wound—every bruise, every cut—screams in protest.

“Stupid girl.”

A familiar masculine voice rumbles beside Kaylee, sending a cold spike of dread through me.

“How dare you try to touch my woman?”

No.

No. No. No.

My heart slams against my ribs as I force my head up, vision swimming.

Philip.

He stands tall and smug, his arms wrapped around her waist. Kaylee melts into him like she belongs there.

“Ph-Philip…” My voice is barely a whisper, raw and trembling.

The man I love.

The man I sacrificed everything for.

The man I married Sebastian for.

My body sways, dizziness pulling at me. The chains rattle as I struggle to process what I’m seeing—what I’m hearing.

“What are y-you d-doin—”

“You wanted to know who hired the assassin, right?” Kaylee chirps, giddy, while Philip smirks down at me like I’m nothing.

Betrayal burns through me, sharp and unbearable. My throat tightens as the awful truth crashes down on me like a landslide.

“It was you.”

The words fall from my lips, barely audible over the sound of my own heart breaking.

Philip’s smirk deepens. Kaylee giggles.

Hot, helpless tears blur my vision as I watch him, the man I once thought was my world, dip Kaylee’s neck and kiss her.

Like I never meant a thing.

“Yes,” he murmurs, his voice calm, almost bored. “You played your part, but you were never really meant to last. Sebastian just made the mistake of dying in your place.” His eyes darken, and something cruel passes in them. “But don’t worry—you won’t be far behind.”

Something inside me shatters.

My voice shakes, my whole body trembling. “My heart, my l-love. I gave you everything. And this is w-what I get?”

Philip laughs. A low, mocking sound that shreds me apart.

“Oh please.” He rolls his eyes. “Kaylee is the one I love, did you really think I could ever fall for someone as dumb as you?”

A sharp, unbearable ache pierces my chest, spreading through my ribs like poison as I struggle to breathe.

FLICK.

The soft, unmistakable sound of a match being struck snaps my attention back.

A tiny flame flickers in the darkness. My pulse jumps higher.

Kaylee grins, her eyes glinting with unhinged delight.

“I hope hell treats you better than we did, Olivia. But knowing you? You’ll probably screw that up too, my darling bestie.”

The match drops.

My breath catches as the fire snakes toward me, greedy and alive, consuming the gasoline trail in a single instant.

Philip chuckles, lifting Kaylee effortlessly into his arms. With one last devilish smirk, they turn away.

“No! Please, don’t do this!”

My voice cracks, raw and desperate, but they don’t look back.

This is it.

This is how I die.

Flames creep closer, the heat burns my skin, licking at my wounds, making me feel every mistake, every regret, every moment I wasted on the wrong people.

My mind flashes—

To Sebastian.

To the way he looks at me. The love in his voice when he says my name.

To every moment I ignored.

To every time he put me first, even when I spat in his face.

I wasted it.

I wasted him.

And now, I burn.

A sob tears through me, my vision darkening as the smoke chokes the last of my air.

If there is anything—anyone—listening…

Give me another chance.

Let me love him first this time.

Let me make it right.