Chapter 1

1: 1

Twenty years ago, Mortimer Sanchez and I teamed up to go get reborn, and Vincent Elmore stared down at the single slot left and frowned.

"The quota's used up. If you both want to reincarnate today, you'll have to share one soul between you."

Before either of us could get a word in, he swept the Golden Ledger up in one hand, tore it clean in two, and pressed a half into each of our brows.

"One soul, one fate. From now on, if one of you gets hurt, the other feels it too. And if one of you dies first, the other one comes straight back down here to me."

Twenty years later, Mortimer Sanchez had become the crown prince of the city's elite, and I was locked down tight in his suburban estate.

"My little ancestor, I'm begging you. Stay in the house and behave. You so much as twist your ankle going downstairs, and I'll be aching for half the night."

Every time before he left, he practically wanted to seal me away in a safe.

Until today.

He'd barely flown off to Nasdaq to ring the opening bell when the estate's front gate was bulldozed flat.

Marie Fox came in with a dozen black-suited bodyguards and smashed my bedroom door open.

She took one look at all the padded furniture crammed into the room, and her eyes went red with jealousy.

"Mortimer won't even let me touch him with a fingertip, and here he's got you enshrined like some ancestor!"

She slapped me hard across the face.

"Drag her out to the courtyard! Break both her legs with an iron rod, then scald the skin right off her with boiling water!"

"I'd love to see whether Mortimer spares you a single glance once you're a cripple!"

The dozen or so bodyguards surged forward at once.

I curled in fast, both arms locked over the places that mattered.

The instant the pain hit, I ground my teeth and chanted it silently in my head:

Vincent Elmore's about to come knocking!

You piece of garbage Mortimer, get back here and save me!

...

The crack of the slap rang through the bedroom.

My face snapped to the side, the taste of blood flooding my mouth at once, the right cheek swelling hot and raw.

Back when Mortimer had first found me, he'd seen a small scrape on my arm, some careless little cut, and hissed through his teeth as if it hurt him.

After that, every sharp corner of the furniture in this thousand-square-meter estate was wrapped in the softest foam.

Even the roses in the garden had every thorn stripped off on his orders.

But now that obsession, all that coddling, was exactly what had lit the fuse on Marie Fox's madness.

I swallowed the blood in my mouth, slowly lifted my head, and looked coldly at the woman standing there with her perfect makeup.

"Marie Fox, take my advice and get out of here right now."

I held my swollen face and gave the warning calmly.

"You hit me today, and Mortimer is the one who feels the pain. If you dare cripple my legs, he'll drop to his knees right there on Wall Street."

"And when that happens, forget just you. Your whole Fox family wouldn't be enough to bury with him."

Marie Fox froze for a beat.

Then, as if she'd heard the funniest joke in the world, she doubled over clutching her stomach and shrieked with laughter.

"Naomi Swanson, has Mortimer coddled you until your brain went to mush? Are you delusional now?"

"He feels your pain for you? Why not just say you're his heart and lungs while you're at it!"

She jabbed a finger at me, her eyes full of the haughty contempt you'd aim at a mistress.

"The marriage between the Sanchez and Fox families is a done deal! As the future matriarch of the Sanchez family, I will not allow a cheap little thing like you to stay by Mortimer's side!"

"Do you honestly think keeping you in some suburban villa means he's actually given you his heart? You're nothing but a plaything he keeps out of sight!"

Her finger was practically in my eye now.

"And you want to use Mortimer to threaten me? Men keep a stray cat or dog around now and then, it's normal. But he knows what actually matters."

"Once he's rung that bell and flown home and gets a look at your crippled, wretched state, you think he'll pity you? Or that he'll be sick at the sight of you?"

Looking at how sure of herself she was, all I felt was pity.

Mortimer had let the Fox family's marriage overtures drag on without a refusal,

only because I happened to think that new little cupcake their family had put out tasted pretty good.

She was walking her whole family straight to its grave with her own two hands.