Chapter 1

After the great corporate war that nearly tore apart the world’s top business dynasties, a cold, iron-clad agreement was signed in the marble halls of the International Commerce Council: strategic marriage alliances between the four major families would decide who controlled the next era of the global empire. Every generation, the families would form calculated unions, and whoever produced the first legitimate heir from that alliance marriage would seize majority board seats, voting rights, and the lion’s share of inheritance across the trillion-dollar conglomerate that spanned finance, real estate, tech, and luxury brands. Power wasn’t inherited by blood alone anymore—it was born in the marriage bed.

In my previous life, I chose Alexander “Alex” Blackwood, the eldest son of the Blackwood conglomerate. Everyone called him the perfect choice—fierce loyalty in boardrooms, ruthless in negotiations, and supposedly devoted once he picked a wife. I married him. Six months later I gave birth to our son Liam, and that child became the empire’s next designated heir. Alex’s stock soared; his family took control of three key subsidiaries overnight. I thought I had won.

My sister Isabella had always lusted after flashier status and red-carpet glamour. She slept with Alex first this time around. In my past life, her endless affairs and reckless parties left her barren and cast out. Jealous that my life looked better than hers, she slipped sedatives into my drink one night, dragged my toddler son and me into the family yacht’s engine room, and set the whole thing on fire while we were unconscious. I watched the flames eat my son’s small body before everything went black.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day of the family alliance meetings in the White family’s Manhattan penthouse. The same crystal chandeliers, the same scent of expensive leather and aged whiskey, the same long mahogany table where contracts were signed in blood and ink. Isabella had already slept with Alex.

I knew she had been reborn too.

But she didn’t know the truth about Alex—that he was brutally savage with his women. Behind closed doors he turned into a beast, tearing through lovers with raw, obsessive hunger that left them bruised and broken for days.

There, on the massive king-sized bed in the Blackwood penthouse suite just one floor below ours, my sister Isabella was completely naked, her legs spread wide apart as Alex pounded into her relentlessly. The headboard slammed against the wall with every brutal thrust. Her fake designer dress lay ripped on the floor. Her breasts bounced wildly, nipples hard, while he gripped her hips so hard his fingers left white marks that were already turning red. Sweat glistened on his muscled back.

“Fuck me deeper, Alex—harder!” Isabella gasped, her voice hoarse and shameless, nails raking bloody lines down his shoulders.

“You like this thick cock stretching your tight little hole, don’t you, slut? Beg for it. Beg me to knot you and fill you up,” he snarled, flipping her onto all fours like an animal. He mounted her from behind, one hand fisting her hair, the other slapping her ass as he slammed in balls-deep, the wet sounds of skin on skin echoing obscenely.

I stood frozen in the doorway, the vision hitting me like a freight train. My hands shook. Rage, betrayal, and the memory of my son’s screams in the fire burned through my veins.

That’s when I snapped out of it and demanded, voice ice-cold but trembling with fury, “Isabella, what the hell are you doing?”

Isabella, panting heavily, still impaled on his massive cock, turned her flushed face toward me. Tears of fake innocence welled in her eyes while her body kept rocking back onto him. “Sister… Alex and I are truly in love. Please, let us be together. We’ve already fucked—multiple times. If I don’t marry him now, no other heir will want a used woman like me.”

In a daze I heard her pleading cries. Father was right there too, standing beside the bed like this was a normal business negotiation, already speaking up for his favorite daughter.

“Sophia, maybe you can pick another alliance partner. Isabella just got carried away and made a tiny mistake. You know how impulsive she is.”

Father always favored Isabella. I was the bastard daughter from his affair with a young model; she was born to his legitimate wife and raised as the princess. He had never hidden it.

I looked down at Isabella now kneeling on the floor, semen dripping down her thighs, her face streaked with tears that looked innocent but her eyes burned with naked ambition and triumph. She had jumped straight into Alex’s bed the moment she got the second chance, stealing the man and the future that were supposed to be mine.

In my past life I had chosen Alex. To me the Voss family seemed cold and heartless in boardrooms, the other elite families fickle players who changed alliances like underwear. Only the Blackwoods seemed loyal and passionate—the safe, perfect choice.

Six months after our wedding I bore Liam. As the first legitimate alliance heir, he secured board control for the Blackwoods. Alex’s power became absolute. But Isabella, craving red-carpet status and luxury endorsements, had chased other alliances and ended up barren, shunned, and eaten alive by jealousy. She blamed me for having the life she wanted, drugged me, and burned my son and me alive while laughing.

Thinking of my baby’s screams in the flames, rage boiled so hot in my veins I could taste blood. I wanted to rip Isabella’s throat out right there with my bare hands and watch her bleed on the carpet.

My fists clenched inside my sleeves until my nails drew blood from my palms. The pain snapped me back to reality.

I forced a knowing, gentle smile that didn’t reach my eyes.

“Since you and Alex are so in love, I won’t stand in your way. Be happy.”

Isabella hadn’t expected me to agree so easily. The crocodile tears she had forced out hung awkwardly on her lashes. She looked almost disappointed that I hadn’t fought her.

“Get up, Isabella. Thank your sister for her blessing,” Father said, sighing in visible relief.

“Th-thank you, sister,” she stammered, bouncing to her feet with fake happiness, still naked, still leaking Alex’s cum.

“Girls grow up so fast these days, hard to keep them around,” Father joked awkwardly, but when he turned and met my cold, unblinking stare, guilt flashed across his face.

“Sophia, the only unmated heirs left from the major families are Damien Voss of the Voss financial empire and a couple of lesser names. I think the other families aren’t a bad pick—their public image and status are way above Voss. And Isabella mentioned before that—”

I cut him off sharply, voice steady but laced with steel. “Father, I’ll form the alliance with Damien Voss of the Voss family.”