Blood tasted like old pennies and copper wire.
It wasn't a metaphor. It was a thick, metallic reality coating my tongue, choking the air from my throat. I spit a mouthful onto the floor. The dark red splatter hit the imported Italian marble with a wet slap, ruining the pristine white surface I had spent the last decade keeping clean.
My knees crashed against the floor. The impact shot a jagged bolt of lightning through my chest, radiating outward from my shattered ribs. I tried to inhale, but my lungs refused to expand. They were filled with fluid, drowning me from the inside out.
I looked up.
Above me, the floor-to-ceiling windows of the penthouse office framed the city's glittering skyline. It was beautiful. It was cold. It was the empire I had built for him. Every skyscraper, every merger, every dirty deal buried under shell companies—I had done it all.
"You played your part perfectly, Julian."
The voice was calm. Smooth. Paternal.
Marcus stood ten feet away. He wore a tailored charcoal suit that cost more than most people earned in a decade. His shoes were polished to a black mirror shine. Not a single drop of my blood had touched them.
A silver pistol hung loose in his right hand. The silencer attached to the barrel made it look comically long, like a toy. But the hole in my chest wasn't a toy.
I coughed, a violent spasm that tore through my torso. I clutched my chest, my fingers slipping on the wet warmth soaking my dress shirt.
"I... signed the confession," I wheezed. The words bubbled up through the blood. "The embezzlement charges. The fraud. It's all mine. You're clean, Marcus. The board... they won't touch you. So why?"
Marcus didn't answer immediately. He turned his back to me, walking casually toward the crystal decanter on his mahogany desk. The sound of crystal clinking against crystal echoed in the silent room. He poured himself two fingers of scotch. He dropped a single cube of ice into the glass.
Clink.
He took a slow sip, savoring the burn, while I bled out on his rug.
"Because you started digging into the bridge," Marcus said, his voice bored. He didn't look at me. He looked at the amber liquid in his glass. "About your parents."
The air vanished from my lungs. The office's sterile smell—lemon polish and air conditioning—suddenly reeked of ozone, burning rubber, and exhaust fumes. The sensory memory hit me harder than the bullet.
"The crash," I whispered. My vision blurred at the edges.
"A business decision," Marcus corrected. He set down the glass on a leather coaster. "Your father wouldn't sell his shares. He was stubborn. Sentimental. He wanted to build a legacy for you."
Marcus turned around. He looked at me with pity. Not the pity you feel for a son, but the pity you feel for a tool that has outlived its usefulness.
"I needed those shares, Julian. Taking you in after the accident... that secured the voting rights. You were useful. Loyal as a dog. You barked when I told you to bark. You bit who I told you to bite."
He walked toward me, the gun hanging loosely at his side.
"But dogs that dig up buried bones get put down."
I stared at the man who had raised me for twenty years. The man I had called father. The man I had destroyed competitors for. I had ruined lives for him. I had evicted families, crushed startups, and silenced whistleblowers, all because I thought I was protecting my family.
There was no family. There was only the ledger.
"Elena..." I choked out. The name burned my throat. "She knows what you are. She knows."
Marcus laughed. It was a dry, scraping sound, devoid of humor.
"My wife?" He shook his head, amused. "Elena doesn't know what day it is. She'll cry when they find your body. She'll drink her vintage wine. And eventually, she'll take too many sleeping pills. Another tragic accident. Another grieving widow."
She dies.
The thought burned hotter than the lead buried in my lung.
Beautiful, sad Elena. I saw her face in my mind—the haunting emptiness in her eyes as she drifted through his mansion like a ghost, starved for affection, rotting in a golden cage. Twenty years I had spent living under the same roof. Twenty years I had spent looking at the floor out of respect, too much of a coward to reach out and save her.
I had failed her. I had failed myself.
"Goodbye, son."
Marcus raised the silver barrel. He didn't hesitate. His hand was steady. It was just another transaction. Another line item to be crossed off.
Click.
A deafening crack.
White heat punched through my skull. The world dissolved into static. My spine hit the marble. The ceiling lights fractured into blurry halos.
Cold darkness rushed in from the edges of my vision, swallowing the skyline, the office, and the face of the man who murdered me.
If I get another chance, I thought as the metallic taste faded into nothing. If I come back... I won't be his dog.
I'll be the monster that devours him whole.
GASSSSP.
The air tore into my lungs like broken glass.
My eyes snapped open. I sat up violently, my hands clawing at my chest, expecting wet fabric and a gaping wound.
My fingers found smooth, unbroken skin.
No blood. No hole. No shattered ribs.
I scrambled backward, my heels kicking against the mattress, until my spine hit the wooden headboard with a hollow thud. I tangled in the sheets, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
It was beating. I was alive.
I stared wildly around the room.
The air didn't smell like gunpowder and copper. It smelled like fresh linen, rain, and expensive cedar wood.
Blue silk curtains fluttered in the open window. Oak bookshelves lined the walls, filled with textbooks I hadn't opened since college. My silver debate trophy sat on the desk, gleaming in the morning light.
This wasn't the penthouse. This was my old bedroom in Marcus's estate.
My hands were shaking. I held them up in front of my face. The calluses from years of corporate grinding—the ink stains, the paper cuts, the dryness—were gone. My skin looked young. Unblemished.
I threw off the heavy duvet and stumbled toward the en-suite bathroom. My legs felt light, springy, bursting with a restless energy I hadn't felt in a decade.
I gripped the porcelain sink until the ceramic groaned under the pressure. I stared into the mirror.
A stranger stared back.
He was twenty-two. His jawline was sharp but lacked the heaviness of age. His skin was clear. His hair was thick and messy from sleep. But the eyes... the eyes were wrong.
They were soft. They were the eyes of a boy who still believed in loyalty. Who still believed that if he worked hard enough, his stepfather would finally be proud of him.
"September," I whispered. My voice cracked.
I looked at the digital clock on the counter.
September 14th, 2016. 7:00 AM.
The numbers burned into my retinas.
Ten years. I had gone back exactly ten years.
Today was Marcus's 50th birthday. The Gala. The night he solidified his alliance with the crooked politicians who would eventually help him dismantle the environmental regulations and triple his net worth.
The phantom bullet in my chest throbbed, a dull ache reminding me this wasn't a fever dream. I had died on that marble floor. I had felt the life drain out of me.
"A business decision," I whispered to my reflection.
The soft eyes in the mirror vanished. The confusion evaporated, replaced by a cold, terrifying clarity.
I wasn't a twenty-two-year-old boy anymore. I was a thirty-two-year-old corporate executioner trapped in a younger body. And I knew everything.
I knew which stocks would crash next week. I knew which politicians were taking bribes. I knew where the bodies were buried because I was the one who would eventually grab the shovel.
And I knew Marcus was going to kill me in ten years.
I turned on the cold water faucet. I splashed the freezing liquid onto my face, washing away the phantom blood, scrubbing the softness from my skin.
I grabbed a towel and dried off. I moved with mechanical precision. I dressed quickly—a dark navy polo shirt and black slacks. Simple. unassuming. The uniform of the obedient ward.
I checked my pockets. A wallet. A keycard to the corporate office.
I didn't just need revenge. I needed power. And in this world, power was currency. I needed seed capital to tear his life apart piece by piece.
And I knew exactly who had it.
I opened my bedroom door and stepped into the hallway.
The mansion was silent. It was a silence I used to mistake for peace. Now, I recognized it for what it was—a mausoleum.
The smell of freshly brewed coffee drifted up the grand staircase. It mingled with the scent of lilies from the foyer arrangements.
I descended the stairs silently. The thick Persian runner absorbed my footsteps. I was a ghost haunting the man who killed me.
I walked toward the dining room.
The morning sun streamed through the French doors, illuminating the long, glass dining table.
Marcus sat at the head.
He was reading the Financial Times, his reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. He looked younger—his hair was still mostly black, his face less lined. He radiated health and vitality.
At the opposite end of the table sat Elena.
I stopped in the doorway.
She wore an emerald-green silk robe that was tied loosely at her waist. Her dark chestnut hair fell in loose, chaotic waves over her shoulders. She stared blankly at her teacup, her posture rigid, her fingers tracing the rim of the china.
She was breathtaking. And she was completely shattered.
Even from here, I could feel the waves of loneliness radiating off her. She was a fixture in this room, no more important to Marcus than the chandelier or the centerpiece. He turned a page of his newspaper with a crisp snap, not even glancing in her direction.
I stepped into the room.
"Good morning."
Marcus lowered the paper. He looked up.
His face broke into a smile—the same warm, paternal, benevolent expression he had worn right before he pulled the trigger.
"Julian."
He stood up. He walked toward me, his arms open. "Sleep well?"
He reached out.
His heavy hand clamped onto my shoulder.
Burn.
Acid shot up my throat. My stomach twisted violently, a physical rejection of his presence. The heat of his hand through my shirt felt like a branding iron. The nausea was instant and overwhelming. Every muscle in my body screamed to snap his arm, to drive the heel of my palm into his nose and push the bone into his brain.
Kill him. Kill him now.
The impulse was blinding.
I breathed slowly through my teeth. I forced my heart rate to slow. I forced my jaw to un-clench.
I painted a grateful, boyish smile on my face.
"Perfectly, Marcus," I lied smoothly. "Never better."
Marcus patted my shoulder twice—pat, pat—oblivious to the predator standing inches from his throat. He saw the obedient dog. He didn't see the wolf.
"Good boy," he said. "Remember, the Gala is tonight. The Senator is coming. I need you to be charming. Don't be late."
"Wouldn't miss it for the world," I said.
I pulled away casually, stepping out of his reach before I vomited.
I let my eyes drift to the other end of the table.
Elena looked up.
Her eyes were hazel, flecked with gold, but dulled by years of neglect. For a split second, our gazes locked.
I didn't look away. I didn't look at the floor like a respectful stepson.
I looked at her. I let the cold mask slip just a fraction. I let her see the heat underneath. I let her see the intensity of a man who saw a woman, not a piece of furniture.
Her breath caught in her throat. A tiny, almost invisible gasp. She blinked, confused, and looked down quickly at her tea. A faint, rose-colored flush crept up her neck, disappearing under the collar of her green silk robe.
She felt it. The seed was planted.
I turned toward the front door.
"Got some studying to do at the library," I called over my shoulder. "Need to prep for the finals."
"That's the spirit," Marcus said, returning to his paper. "Diligence builds empires, Julian."
Yes, I thought. It does.
I stepped out into the crisp morning air. The heavy oak door clicked shut behind me, sealing the tomb.
My hands stopped shaking. The nausea faded, replaced by ice-cold calculation.
I walked down the driveway to my car—a silver sedan Marcus had bought me. Another leash.
I checked my watch. 7:15 AM.
I didn't need a library. I needed a laptop.
Marcus's ambitious secretary, Valerie, was currently sitting in the downtown office. She was twenty-six, ruthless, and skimming fifty thousand dollars from a dummy corporate account she thought was secure.
She thought she was the smartest person in the room. She thought she was invisible.
I opened the car door and slid into the driver's seat. The engine roared to life.
I was about to show her what a real monster looked like.
I shifted into gear and peeled out of the driveway, the tires screeching against the asphalt.
Phase One began now.