Let me tell you who I am, who Rosie Carter really is—no longer the love-struck fool who turned her back on her family for two traitors. I'm 24, the only heir to Carter Enterprises, a multi-billion-dollar conglomerate founded by my grandfather, covering luxury real estate, high-end fashion, and tech investments across the U.S. My parents are strict but loving; they built the family fortune from the ground up and wanted nothing but the best for me—good education, sincere love, a secure future. But I was blind, so blindly in love with Ethan that I ignored everything they said.
Ethan came from a middle-class family with nothing to his name, pretending to be gentle and ambitious, but all he wanted was the Carter family's money and status. Sarah, my so-called best friend since high school, grew up in poverty and was obsessed with luxury; she clung to me not because we were friends, but because I could give her the life she craved. When my parents saw through Ethan, hired a private investigator, and begged me to leave him, I shouted at them, accused them of being snobbish, and moved to Chicago with Ethan and Sarah—cutting off all contact with my family, giving up my trust fund, and living in this shabby apartment to "prove" my love. It was the biggest mistake of my life. But now, I have a second chance. And I won't waste it.
The sound of Sarah's faint footsteps faded down the hallway, and the fake vulnerability drained from my body as quickly as it had come. I sat up straight on the lumpy mattress, no longer hunched or trembling, my jaw unclenching slowly—leaving a dull ache in my temples, a lingering reminder of the hatred I'd clamped down on. I lifted my palm, staring at the tiny pinprick of blood where the jade pendant's carvings had dug into my skin, the red dot stark against my pale flesh. I brushed my thumb over it, then pressed my palm to the pendant at my neck, its warmth mixing with the faint sting of my wound. This blood was a promise—a vow that I would not falter, not this time. Three months. 91 days. That's all I had to turn the tables, to prepare for the endless rain that would drown the world, and to make Ethan and Sarah pay for every ounce of pain they'd inflicted.
I swung my legs over the edge of the bed, my feet hitting the cold hardwood floor with a sharp thud that echoed in the tiny studio. The rain still tapped against the window, a steady, rhythmic reminder of the storm to come, but it no longer sounded like a death knell—it sounded like a countdown. I stood up, stretching my stiff shoulders, and walked to the rickety thrift-store coffee table in the corner. On it lay a cheap dollar-store notebook and a scratchy ballpoint pen—items I'd bought to keep up my "cash-strapped" charade, a far cry from the leather-bound designer journals I'd filled with naive dreams of Ethan and our future, back before I'd turned my back on my family. I flipped open the notebook to a blank page, the pen scratching loudly against the paper as I wrote the words "Phase 1: Secure Funds" at the top, my handwriting sharp and determined, nothing like the shaky, hopeful script of my past self.