Revenge of the Sterling Heiress

In my past life, I found out by accident that my half-sister Serena wasn't actually Dad's biological daughter. Not long after, she pushed me into the deep sea.

When I opened my eyes again, I'd been reborn into the womb of Evelyn Sterling, the mistress my father kept on the side.

At the Vance family's anniversary gala, his wife Margaret caused a huge scene, slapping the very pregnant Evelyn across the face. To save the family's reputation, Elias just stood there and let Evelyn take the hit.

Nobody knew that this seemingly fragile, pregnant woman was actually a financial shark who'd been lying low for eighteen years. And nobody knew that the baby in her belly was a vengeful reincarnated soul, back to settle a blood debt.

I heard the whole farce from inside Evelyn's womb. So I kicked. And that's how I made my grand entrance.

Freezing seawater poured into my mouth and nose like crazy, my lungs burning like they were about to explode.

"Maya, just die already! The Vance family's billions, and Dad's loveit's all mine now!"

At the edge of the yacht's deck, Serena's faceusually so pitiful and sweettwisted into something demonic under the pale moonlight. She peeled my fingers off the railing one by one, her eyes gleaming with pure murderous intent.

I was only eighteen, the legitimate daughter of the Vance family.

She was just the extra baggage my stepmother Margaret had dragged into the family.

Half an hour earlier, I'd gotten my hands on a confidential DNA test result. It said, in black and white, that Serena was not my father Elias's biological daughter at all.

That bitch Margaret had fooled the entire Vance family with another man's kid for eighteen years!

I'd planned to expose the two of them, but I never expected Serena to already be one step aheadshe came at me to kill, right out here in international waters.

"Just let go, Maya." She laughed sweetly, stomping hard on the back of my hand.

Pain shot through me as bones cracked, and I finally lost my grip. I fell straight down into the bottomless, roaring darkness.

Full of rage and unfinished business, I closed my eyes.

If I get another life, I swear I'll make these two poisonous women pay in blood. I'll make that spineless, biased coward of a father pay too.

...

I don't know how much time passed.

When my consciousness gathered again, there was no freezing water. Instead, I was wrapped in something warm and soft.

In my ears, a muffled but clear argument was happening.

"Elias! You owe me an explanation today! What do you think I am? What do you think Serena is?"

A sharp, shrill woman's voice, dripping with entitled fury.

I jolted.

That voice... it was Margaret!

I wasn't dead?

"Margaret, calm down! It's the Vance Group's anniversary celebration today, the whole floor is packed with media and business elites. If you make a scene here, how is that going to look?"

A man's voice, deliberately lowered, edged with panic.

Elias! My selfish, hypocritical biological father!

I tried to open my eyes, but I couldn't. I waved my arm and touched nothing but soft, fleshy walls.

I realized with a shockI'd been reborn!

And not just rebornI was inside a woman's womb! I'd become an unborn fetus!

"You want me to calm down? You let that homewrecker show up at my gala flaunting her pregnant belly, and you want me to calm down?!"

Margaret's voice spiked, her heels striking the floor hard.

"Elias, I didn't mean to... my stomach just hurt so much, I wanted to find you..."

A soft, trembling, tearful voice spoke up.

The voice was unfamiliar, but I instantly understood who she was.

This was the mistress Elias kept hidden awaymy mother in this lifetime!

"Shut up! Evelyn, didn't I tell you to stay at the suburban house? Who told you to come downtown?!" Elias didn't comfort her at allinstead he snarled viciously, "Do you have any idea how much my stock will drop if a reporter gets a photo of you?!"

Smack!

A sharp slap rang out.

"Bitch! You think you can seduce my husband and get away with it? I'll kill that bastard kid in your belly right now!" Margaret cursed viciously.

I felt the space wrapped around me shake violently, and my mother's body convulsed in agony.

Margaret had hit my mom!

And that coward Elias didn't even dare make a peep!

"Margaret, a couple of hits to vent is fine, just don't kill her, there are reporters downstairs..." Elias's voice was full of placating indifference.

For the sake of his reputation, for the sake of his stock price, he was willing to stand there and watch his own woman and unborn child get beaten half to death!

In my last life, it was the samefor Serena's sake, he ignored all the wrongs done to me. And now, in this life, it was happening againfor his own benefit, he'd sacrifice anything.

A wave of fury burned through my chest.

I felt out my own body. Even though I wasn't full term yet, I already had full strength.

I gathered all my power into my legs and kicked, hard, against the soft wall of the womb.

"Ahhh!"

A scream of pure agony tore through the quiet of the lounge.

My mother's body spasmed violently, and I felt the fluid around me burst and gush out like a breaking dam.

"Evelyn! What's wrong with you?!" Elias finally panicked, his voice unable to hide his fear.

"Blood... she's bleeding!" Margaret shrieked too, terrified.

I didn't stop. I kept rolling and kicking like crazy inside the womb.

I needed out!

"It hurts... help me... save my baby..." Evelyn moaned weakly, despair in her voice.

"Quick! Call an ambulance! Take the back door, don't let the reporters see!" Elias growled, lowering his voice.

Take the back door? Dream on.

I calculated the direction and threw everything I had into one final push downward.

Bang!

The lounge door was suddenly thrown open from outside.

"Mr. Vance, there you are, the speech downstairs is about tooh my god!"

The assistant who'd come to find him let out a shriek, her voice cracking.

Right behind her, a storm of camera flashes lit up the room.

Turns out the sharp-nosed reporters had already sensed something was off and quietly followed.

"Mr. Vance! Who is this pregnant woman covered in blood?"

"Mrs. Vance, did you assault this woman?"

"Vance Group CEO's affair, mistress goes into labor at the galawill this affect tomorrow's stock price?!"

The reporters swarmed in like sharks that smelled blood, shoving cameras and microphones right into Elias and Margaret's faces.

Elias's face went deathly pale. He tried to block the lenses with his hands, but it was useless.

"Stop filming! Security! Where the hell is security?!" he roared hysterically.

Margaret was even more terrified, her face draining of color. Her custom designer gown was splattered with Evelyn's bloodshe was a complete mess, nothing left of her usual high-society arrogance.

"It wasn't me... I didn't touch her! She fell on her own!" Margaret babbled, incoherent.

But I wasn't going to give her a chance to make excuses.

With Evelyn's last heart-wrenching scream of pain, I finally broke free and arrived in this world.

No doctor, no delivery bedI was born right there on the floor, surrounded by blood and a hundred camera flashes, at the Vance Group's anniversary gala.

"Waaah!"

I didn't cry weakly like a normal newborn. I opened my mouth and let out a loud, piercing wail.

The cry cut through the lounge and echoed across the entire ballroom.

Dead silence.

Everyone stared in shock at the blood-covered infant on the floor, and the frail woman lying unconscious beside her.

Elias's perfect image, the Vance Group's century of prestigeI'd just kicked it all to pieces.

The ambulance arrived, sirens blaring.

My cord was cut, I was hastily wrapped in someone's jacket, and Evelyn and I were both carried out on stretchers.

I lay quietly in the hospital incubator.

Even though being premature had left my body weak, my mind was unusually clear.

Outside, everything had gone to chaos.

Vance Group's stock hit the limit-down in the first ten minutes of trading, wiping out tens of billions in market value.

The news of Elias's affair and his wife beating a pregnant woman into early labor was plastered across every headline.

For the past few days, Elias had been so overwhelmed he hadn't had time to even visit us.

Evelyn, on the other hand, had spent a full day and night in the ICU before finally being stabilized and moved to a private room.

Late at night.

The hallway outside the incubator room was silent except for the steady beeping of machines.

Suddenly, the door opened a crack.

A figure dressed in a nurse's uniform, wearing a mask, slipped inside.

She'd covered herself well, but I'd recognize those scheming, venomous eyes anywhere, even as ash.

Serena!

She was only sixteen this time around, but she was already a snake with deep, twisted intentions.

In my last life, she'd used that same pitiful, innocent face to win everyone's trust before pushing me off a cliff.

She walked up to the incubator and stared down at me, her eyes full of malice.

"You little bastard, lucky you, surviving all that," she muttered, voice icy.

"You and your shameless mother ruined my family's gala. My dad doesn't even dare come home now, and my mom's getting torn apart online."

"Trash like you doesn't deserve to live in this world!"

As she cursed viciously, she pulled out a tiny syringe from her pocket.

Inside it was a clear liquid.

I sneered inwardly.

This trick again.

In my past life, she loved using all sorts of undetectable drugs to frame me.

This time, she clearly wanted to tamper with my IV line, to make it look like I'd died naturally from being premature and weak.

I lay perfectly still, like a completely helpless infant.

Seeing how defenseless I looked, the satisfaction in Serena's eyes deepened.

She reached out, aiming the needle at the IV port connected to my body.

Just as the tip was about to pierce the rubber membrane

I snapped my eyes open and stared directly at her!

Startled by my sudden movement, Serena's hand froze.

I threw every ounce of strength I had into swinging my tiny hand, ripping the mini heart monitor right off my chest!

A piercing alarm exploded through the room.

Serena's face went white. In her panic, she tried to pull the needle back, but her hand shook so badly that she stabbed it straight into her own finger.

"Ah!" She cried out in pain, dropping the syringe on the floor.

"What's going on?!"

The on-duty nurses and doctors heard the alarm and rushed in like a stampede.

Serena had no chance to escapeshe was caught red-handed.

"Who are you? What department are you from? What are you doing in here?!" The head nurse grabbed her arm, demanding answers.

The lights flicked on bright.

Serena's mask was yanked off, revealing her panicked face.

Right then, the door opened again.

Evelyn walked in, still in her hospital gown, pale-faced, supported by two bodyguards.

Her eyes swept over the syringe on the floor, then landed on Serena's terrified face. Her expression went cold instantly.

All the fragility and helplessness from the gala had completely vanished.

"Call the police." Evelyn's voice was ice cold.

Serena completely fell apart. She dropped to her knees, sobbing dramatically. "No! Evelyn, I was wrong! I just came to see the baby, I didn't mean any harm..."

"No harm?" Evelyn walked up to her, looking down with disdain.

She bent down, picked up the syringe off the floor, and handed it to the nearby doctor. "Test what's in this."

The doctor took one look and his face changed. "This is a high concentration of potassium chloride! If this had been injected directly into an infant, it would have caused cardiac arrestand it would've been nearly impossible to detect."

The room gasped collectively.

A sixteen-year-old girl, capable of something this vicious?

Evelyn looked at Serena like she was looking at a corpse.

"Serena, you're just as useless as your mother."

The police arrived quickly and dragged Serena away as she desperately tried to talk her way out of it.

The room fell silent again.

Evelyn walked over to the incubator and looked at me inside it.

She reached out and traced my outline through the glass.

Her eyes were no longer coldthey held a depth and complexity I couldn't quite read.

"Baby, don't be scared," she whispered. "Mommy will protect you. Anyone who's ever hurt usMommy's not letting a single one of them go."

I looked at her, my mind churning with disbelief.

This mother of mine... she wasn't as simple as she seemed on the surface.

News that Serena had been detained by police on suspicion of attempted murder became the final straw that broke Elias.

Vance Group's stock had been hitting limit-down for three straight days, and the board membersa pack of old wolveswere closing in, demanding answers.

Elias rushed to the hospital that night like a beaten dog.

He burst into Evelyn's room, eyes bloodshot, face covered in stubble, with none of his usual arrogance left.

"Evelyn! Drop the charges! Drop them right now!" He grabbed her wrist, voice hoarse and desperate.

"Serena's only sixteen! She can't have a criminal record! How is she supposed to live with that?!"

I lay in the bassinet beside them, listening to this all-too-familiar script, and sneered inside.

In my past life, when Serena deliberately pushed me down the stairs and broke my leg, Elias said the exact same thing.

"Maya, Serena didn't mean it, she's still young, you're the older one, you should be more forgiving, don't ruin her future."

He always, always protected that girl who didn't even share his blood.

Evelyn didn't pull away. She just looked at him coldly.

"Elias, your daughter tried to kill mine, and you want me to drop the charges?" Her voice was eerily calm.

"She's just a kid! What does she even understand?!" Elias cut her off impatiently. "It was probably just a moment of stupidity! Besides, the baby's fine, isn't she?!"

"Fine?" Evelyn yanked her hand away and slapped him across the face, hard.

Smack!

Elias stood there stunned, hand on his cheek, staring at this woman who'd always been so submissive.

"If the nurse hadn't found her in time, my daughter would be a corpse right now!" Evelyn pointed at the door. "Get out! If you say one more word defending that murderer, I'll hand the evidence of Vance Group's tax fraud straight to the economic crimes unit!"

Elias's whole body shook, panic flashing across his eyes.

"You... how do you know about..."

"If you don't want people to find out, don't do it in the first place," Evelyn said coldly. "Elias, you think after three years with you, I'm really just some clueless trophy wife?"

Elias completely deflated, like a balloon losing air.

He knew this woman had him by the throat.

"Fine... I won't get involved, I won't say anything..." He turned away, defeated, but stopped at the door and added through gritted teeth, "But Margaret's not going to let this go. Watch yourself."

Elias left.

Evelyn turned to look at me, and the ice in her expression melted into a gentle smile.

"Baby, see that? That's what a man really looks like. You can't rely on anyone but yourself."