Claiming My Rival's Ex-Wife As Mine

The champagne wasn't just cold; it was a violation. It hit Evelyn's face with a stinging slap, the bubbles fizzing in her eyes, the scent of yeast and spoiled grapes flooding her senses. A collective gasp rippled through the gala, followed by the muffled sound of titters behind manicured hands.

Her vision cleared from the alcoholic blur. The first thing she saw was her husband, Jace Welch, his hand still holding the empty flute, his handsome face twisted into a mask of pure disgust.

"Evelyn, stop making a scene," he hissed, his voice a low venom meant only for her. "It's over."

Beside him, Kaya Camacho, his assistant, his mistress, clutched his arm. Her big, innocent eyes were welling with tears, a perfect picture of a wronged woman.

The words, the scene, the smell—it was a key turning in a lock deep inside her mind. A floodgate opened, and memories that weren't hers, yet were, poured through. She remembered this night. She remembered being accused of pushing a pregnant Kaya. She remembered Jace using it as an excuse to force her into a divorce, leaving her with nothing.

The memories accelerated, a nightmare on fast-forward. Smith Pharma, her family's legacy, was carved up and absorbed by competitors after Jace leaked its proprietary research. Her father, his health already fragile, died under the weight of the bankruptcy. Her mother, a ghost of her former self, was institutionalized. And Evelyn... Evelyn ended up in a sterile white room, her life extinguished by a cocktail of unknown drugs pushed into her veins by a smiling nurse.

In her final moments, a presence had appeared, a voice that called itself a 'Messenger.' It told her the ruin of her family was no accident but the result of a sophisticated biological toxin. It had taught her something—a new sense. A way to see the invisible signatures of life and decay, of intent and malice, that clung to people like a second skin.

Now, looking at Jace, she could see it. A cold, gray aura of selfish ambition clung to him. On Kaya, it was a sickly sweet, cloying pink—the color of manufactured innocence and rot.

She looked down at her hands. They were smooth, unblemished, the diamond on her left finger still sparkling. She touched her cheek, wet with champagne, not the tears she remembered. This was real. She was back. Back at the beginning of the end.

"Don't just stand there looking stupid," Jace snarled, his patience gone. He grabbed her wrist, his grip tight and bruising. The physical contact sent a wave of nausea through her. She could feel the slick falsehood under his skin. "You're embarrassing me. We're leaving. You'll sign the papers tonight."

The whispers around them grew louder. "Did you see that? The Welch heir..." "She always was a bit unstable..." "Poor Kaya..."

The humiliation was a physical thing, a pressure building in her chest, threatening to suffocate her. In her first life, she had burst into tears. She had begged. She had pleaded with Jace, asking him what she did wrong.

But the woman who had died in that asylum was not the woman standing here now. The pain of her family's destruction had burned away all that pathetic, misplaced love. All that was left was a cold, hard resolve. The Messenger's final words echoed in her mind: Your gift is a weapon. Use it.

She was no longer Mrs. Jace Welch, a desperate wife. She was Evelyn Smith, and she had crawled out of her own grave to collect a debt written in blood.

Jace saw her silence as submission. A triumphant smirk touched his lips. He started to pull her toward the exit, ready to dispose of her as planned.

But his pull met resistance.

Evelyn didn't just stop; she planted her feet, her entire body becoming an anchor of defiance. Then, with a sharp, violent twist, she ripped her wrist from his grasp. The movement was so unexpected, so out of character, that Jace stumbled back a step, his handsome face a picture of disbelief.

The crowd fell silent.

Evelyn ignored them all. She calmly reached over to a passing waiter's tray, took a glass of ice water, and poured it over her own head. The shock of the cold was clean, sharp, washing away the sticky champagne and the last vestiges of the woman she used to be.

She lifted her chin, water streaming down her face like a baptism, and met Jace's stunned gaze. Her eyes were no longer the eyes of a woman who loved him. They were the eyes of a stranger who had already buried him.

"You're right," she said, her voice steady and devoid of any emotion he recognized. "It's time to sober up. I've been drunk on a lie for three years."

Her gaze shifted to Kaya, and for the first time, the other woman's mask of victimhood faltered. Evelyn's look wasn't angry or hurt. It was the look of a scientist examining a specimen on a slide. "And you," Evelyn added, her tone almost conversational, "you can keep him. I've already had him. Trust me, the novelty wears off faster than his hairline."

A shocked snort of laughter escaped someone in the crowd. Kaya's face flushed a deep, ugly red. Jace's mouth opened and closed like a landed fish.

Evelyn smoothed down the front of her drenched designer gown, a small, chilling smile playing on her lips.

"A divorce?" she said, the words cutting through the silence. "Of course. My lawyer will be in touch with yours tomorrow. Let's say, ten A.M.?"

Without waiting for a reply, without another glance at the man she had once loved or the woman who had destroyed her, Evelyn Smith turned and walked away. She moved through the sea of shocked faces, her back straight, her steps even, leaving a trail of water and shattered expectations in her wake.