Chapter 2

I was reborn at fourteen.

My father, Richard Vance, had just returned from a board meeting, impeccably dressed in a sharp suit, his tie perfectly knotted. He sat on the study sofa in the old Vance family estate, a legal agreement resting on the table beside him.

I stood before him, my school uniform wrinkled, my hair a mess. I’d just come back from a late study session, looking like a naive teenager oblivious to the family drama unfolding.

"Eleanor," he said, calling my name gently.

"Your mother has been a little emotional lately. You can choose to stay here and be with her, or you can go abroad to the school you like. After graduation, you can return, and a portion of the company's shares can be given to you to manage ahead of time."

He spoke sincerely and softly, like an understanding father.

"I've already prepared the living expenses for your time abroad. Two hundred million dollars, transferred directly to your personal account, for your full discretion."

In my past life, when I stood in this exact spot, I was stunned. Two hundred million dollars. Such a massive sum. It was a massive sum, yes, but now I knew, it was just a way to discreetly transfer assets.

Mom sat on the living room sofa, saying nothing, her eyes red and raw.

I cried as I tore the agreement into tiny shreds, throwing them at my father's feet, my eyes blazing as I yelled, "I want my mom!"

I truly believed I had won then.

Looking back now, I was so incredibly foolish.

That year, I naively chose to stay with my mother. And what happened?

Less than six months later, my father still sent me abroad, packing me off to his executive mistress, Seraphina Hayes's house in America. He claimed it was to broaden my horizons and groom me as a future successor. I became the only person in that grand villa without a true ally, eventually even the nannies started ordering me around.

Seraphina’s boy-girl twins, seemingly harmless, were actually my father’s illegitimate children, utterly spoiled and entitled. They eventually tried to snatch the family inheritance, and to think I once considered them my own siblings.

And me? In the end, no one even remembered that I was the eldest daughter of the Vance family.

My mother remained here, alone in the old estate, desperately trying to contact schools, learn English, hire lawyers, all to bring me back.

She thought she was the legitimate wife, that she still had a right to speak up.

Until one day, she received a lawyer's letter. The house deed was being reclaimed.

She didn't move out.

She sat in the empty living room, not even bothering to boil water, eating cold food, bite by bite, saying, "I'll wait for Eleanor to come home."

I heard the soft clink of pill bottles in her room over the phone, and that's when I knew she was so depressed she was afraid to sleep.

I graduated at nineteen, and my first job was scrubbing floors in a diner in Melbourne.

My second was cleaning kennels for a wealthy family.

The day my mother was admitted to the hospital, I was handing out flyers in a parking garage.

The doctor called me from overseas, "She attempted to jump from the building three times tonight, but we don't have your father's authorization for forced treatment."

I stood downstairs from the hospital, my phone pressed to my ear, unable to utter a single word.

The last time I saw her was five minutes before her cremation.

She couldn't hear me call her name anymore.

It was then I finally understood. She didn't lose to Richard Vance; she lost because of me.

The daughter she spent her entire life protecting simply wasn't strong enough.

This life, the agreement was laid before me again.

I didn't cry.

I simply picked up the pen and, with a decisive flourish, signed my name, 'Eleanor Vance'.

My father raised an eyebrow, as if truly looking at me for the first time.

"Are you sure about this?"

"Completely sure." I looked at him, my voice calm.

I paused, then added, "As your *only* child, I really should go out and gain some experience."

I let the word 'only' hang in the air, a subtle challenge.

He froze for two seconds, then chuckled softly. "You truly are my daughter, Eleanor. Ambitious."

I smiled too.

But my smile was far more knowing than his.

He thought I had finally come to my senses, willing to be obedient.

But I knew in my heart that sending me away was merely a prelude to him fostering his illegitimate children.

By getting rid of me, he could easily divorce Elara and officially legitimize his executive mistress.

My mother, tragically, would never understand.

She was still living in a dream, believing he would eventually come back to her.

She didn't know that once I signed this agreement, she and I were both completely kicked out of the Vance family game.

That night, I returned to my room. The door closed, and the moon outside was cold and distant.

I didn't cry.

I just opened my laptop and logged into my exclusive bank account.

Two hundred million dollars. Deposited.

I stared at the balance for a minute, then pulled open a drawer and took out a notebook.

On the first page, I wrote:

* Richard Vance’s illegitimate children: Dominic Hayes, Briar Hayes, born in New York.

* Richard Vance’s offshore trust accounts: To be investigated.

* Elara Vance’s dowry company shares flow: To be investigated.

* Goal: Within four years, reclaim everything that belongs to my mother and me.

I clicked on a picture of my mom.

Her youthful smiling face was still vivid in my mind, wearing a ten-year-old trench coat, smiling so innocently.

She later gave that trench coat to a nanny, saying the woman's family wasn't well-off.

Later, I saw it in the trash, streaked with cake crumbs and smeared with dirty footprints.

This life, I wouldn't believe anything anymore.

It wasn't that I was heartless; it was that I finally saw the truth—in this family, no one genuinely cared about my mother or me.

From today on, I, Eleanor Vance, will use these two hundred million dollars to completely dismantle the Vance empire, piece by agonizing piece.