Chapter 1

I have died four times.

Every single time, I met my end on the exact same day—stripped naked and thrown onto the freezing street by Luke.

I tried countless ways to survive, yet each life ended in a bloody, agonizing death.

It wasn't until after I died that I discovered the truth: I was nothing more than a disposable tragic heroine in a melodramatic romance novel, created solely to suffer and highlight the epic love story between Luke and Chloe.

All my misery was engineered just so Luke could have a dramatic change of heart at the very end, giving Chloe her perfect happily-ever-after.

Why should they get their happy ending at my expense?

Opening my eyes for the fourth time, the breathless, disgusting sounds of two people hooking up echoed clearly through the abandoned house.

This time, I was done playing along with the plot.

I was going to rewrite the ending with my own hands.

Everyone who sucked my blood and chewed on my bones was going to burn in hell with me.

Accompanied by the rhythmic, vulgar sounds of flesh slapping against flesh, I opened my eyes.

Luke sat on the edge of my bed, holding Chloe in his arms. One of them was the rising star Marketing Director at the conglomerate, and the other was the favorite mistress of our billionaire CEO, Preston. Here they were, shamelessly carrying on an affair without a care in the world.

When they finished, Chloe's sweet, sticky voice drifted over. "Luke, Leo looks more and more like Serena every day. What if he grows up, finds out she’s his real mother, and rejects me?"

Luke kissed her, still catching his breath. "Don't worry, baby. Kill her, and no one will ever know."

"No... we can't do that. She did save our lives back then, after all. Repaying kindness with murder might bring bad karma."

"Fine. Then I'll strip her naked and toss her onto the street. I'll completely destroy her reputation. Even if Leo finds out the truth later, he'd never accept a shameless whore as his mother."

"Well, she did sleep with Mr. Kane, so she really is a whore. We wouldn't even be lying about her."

It was Chloe who had desperately wanted a baby. The moment she found out I had a high fertility rate, she had Luke drug my drink and throw me into Preston Kane's bed.

Yet, hearing them twist the facts so effortlessly, not a single ripple disturbed my face.

Because this was my fourth rebirth.

In my first life, I was stripped bare and tossed onto the pavement. Beaten, humiliated, and assaulted by an ignorant mob, I ended it by biting off my own tongue.

Only in death did I learn the script. I was the martyr heroine of a trashy novel.

After I died, Chloe tried to poison Luke to bury the secret forever. That was when Luke finally realized I was the only person who had ever truly loved him.

Consumed by regret, he exposed their affair to Preston. Preston, furious, stripped them of their wealth, kicked them out of the company, and cut off all their avenues of escape. Hunted and desperate, they died in a horrific car crash on the run, their bodies torn to pieces.

Knowing that plot, I foolishly thought Luke still had a shred of love left for me.

So, in my second life, when I heard their conversation, I dragged my broken legs toward them, crying and begging.

I swore on my life that I would never tell Leo the truth. I promised I would pack my bags that very night, leave the city, and never return.

Luke hesitated. He looked swayed.

Then Chloe spoke up. "Serena, you really have a silver tongue. You almost convinced me. When Leo grows up, you could easily sweet-talk him into hating me. How would there be any room left in his heart for an adoptive mother like me?"

She fake-sobbed a few tears, and Luke instantly hardened his heart.

He sliced out my tongue with his own hands, stripped off my clothes, and dumped me on the street in the dead of night. My fate repeated itself.

In my third life, I pretended not to hear them. I let them strip me and drag me onto the pavement.

Once a crowd gathered, I used all the air in my lungs to scream the truth, exposing Luke and Chloe's filthy affair to the world.

Luke immediately painted me as an escaped lunatic. A security guard he brought along plunged a knife straight through my heart right there on the sidewalk.

In my fourth life, I let the passersby beat and kick me. I didn't struggle. I held my breath, barely clinging to life, trying to play dead so I could crawl away in the dark.

Instead, Luke sold my "corpse" to a sadistic creep with a sickening fetish. I was tortured to death in a basement.

I didn't understand. Why?

Years ago, Luke and Chloe were starving runaways, collapsing on my family's doorstep. I saved their lives. My parents raised them like their own children, paying for Luke's education and buying Chloe brand-new clothes.

I had never done a single thing wrong to either of them. Why did they ensure I died a gruesome death every single time?

Just because the script labeled me a tragic victim?

Screw that.