Chapter 1

In my last life, to strip me of my place as the Henson heiress and make it look legitimate, my parents, my fiancé, and my adopted sister staged a fake zombie siege, meaning to make me lose my mind in front of everyone.

They never imagined their little performance would collide with an actual outbreak.

Only when my parents shielded my adopted sister and shoved me out to hold off the zombies did I finally learn the truth. Lucia Henson was the Hensons' real daughter.

And I was the stand-in they'd carried home as a child, the fake heiress kept around to take every blow meant for her.

When I opened my eyes again, I had been reborn to the days before the four of them ever staged that scheme.

This time I would strike first, and make the four people who ruined my life pay.

1

When I came back to myself, I was still at the Henson company, working through the next investment project.

The next moment my phone rang. It was my adopted sister, Lucia.

"Sis, Mom's been saying she doesn't feel well these past couple of days. I want to take her to the hospital for a checkup."

Hearing those familiar words, my hand froze around the phone.

I had lived this scene before.

In my last life I'd thought it was nothing, just an ordinary little thing. I never knew it was the first step into their trap.

"All right. You take Mom in first. I'll come find you once I've wrapped things up at the office."

"Okay."

The second I hung up, I stopped every one of the company's partnerships and started pulling the cash flow back in.

Not long after, Secretary Finch rushed into my office, drenched in sweat.

"Mr. Henson, the partners are blowing up our phones."

"Don't panic. Anyone owed compensation gets it. From this moment on, the company halts every partnership. We're moving to put all of our shares into Fox Pharmaceuticals."

My words rooted Michelle Finch to the spot. For a long moment she couldn't believe what she'd heard.

But I knew exactly what I was doing. I had to do this, even if I had to swallow every loss the company took.

Because before long, this city would fall. It would become a real-life version of Train to Busan.

Remembering the moment in my last life, when the Hensons pushed me into the zombies with their own hands and I was eaten alive, bite by bite, only made my resolve harder.

"Even if the company goes under, I'm investing in Fox Pharmaceuticals."

"But the chairman will find out for sure."

"Don't worry. He won't come after me."

Michelle still had her doubts, but she had no choice except to do as I said.

Watching her hesitate, taking one step and glancing back three times, waiting for me to stop her, I had to give her a push toward the door.

"Go on, hurry. One day you'll thank me for what I decided today."

Fox Pharmaceuticals was only a small company right now, but they held a piece of research that would decide whether humanity lived or died.

The serum for the zombie virus.