Reborn Heiress: The Shadow Regent's Obsession

The sound of the dirt hitting the casket was rhythmic. Thud. Thud. Thud.

It was a polite sound, much like the polite tears streaming down Senator Ellwood's face. He dabbed at his eyes with a pristine white handkerchief, posing for the cameras flashing behind the police barricade. Her stepmother, Carroll, stood beside him, her hand resting on his arm, looking every bit the grieving mother.

But Ali wasn't in the box.

She was floating above it, a tethered consciousness, watching the farce of her own funeral. The rain in D.C. was always cold, but she couldn't feel it anymore. She was nothing but a ghost, forced to witness the aftermath of her own murder.

The scene shifted, dissolving like ink in water. The cemetery vanished.

She was now inside a high-rise office overlooking the Capitol. The air here smelled of copper and ozone.

Isadore Walker sat behind his desk.

He looked nothing like the man she remembered. The pristine, cold arrogance was gone. His white dress shirt was stained crimson at the cuffs. His eyes, usually sharp enough to cut glass, were hollow. Dead.

He tapped a key on his laptop. The screen flashed red.

DEAD HAND SYSTEM: ACTIVATED.

Lines of code cascaded down the monitor. Bank accounts belonging to the Lancaster family, the Collins family-everyone who had played a part in her downfall-were zeroing out in real-time. Billions of dollars, evaporating into the digital void.

A whimper came from the floor.

Ali looked down. Senator Ellwood was on his knees, his expensive suit ruined, begging.

"Please, Isadore... I didn't know... I swear..."

Isadore didn't blink. He didn't speak. He simply raised a matte black pistol and fired.

The shot took Ellwood in the kneecap. The scream was silent to her ghostly ears, but the agony on his face was vivid.

She stared at Isadore. Why? Why was he doing this? He was the Shadow Regent, the man who moved pieces on the political board with dispassionate logic. He had never shown her anything but polite indifference.

Isadore ignored the bleeding man. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, shimmering object.

Her necklace.

The unassuming silver chain with the koi fish pendant. She thought she had lost it years ago.

He brought it to his lips, his eyes closing for a fraction of a second. A tremor ran through his hand, the only sign of the storm raging inside him.

"Little Fish," he whispered.

The nickname hit her soul like a physical blow. No one called her that. Only a ghost from a childhood she could barely remember.

Sirens wailed outside. Blue and red lights washed over the walls. The SWAT team was breaching the building.

Isadore didn't move to escape. He looked like a king who had lost his kingdom, and was now content to burn the empty throne. He looked at the C4 charges rigged around the room. His finger hovered over the detonator.

"No," she screamed, her voice soundless. "Isadore, don't!"

He pressed the button.

The world turned white. The heat was instantaneous, a consuming fire that should have burned her soul into nothingness.

But it didn't burn.

It froze.

The roar of the explosion twisted, warping into the heavy, muffled gurgle of water.

Her lungs seized. The phantom pain of fire was replaced by the very real, agonizing burn of oxygen deprivation.

She wasn't floating. She was sinking.

Her eyes snapped open. Chlorine stung them. Above her, the surface of the water rippled, distorted by the lights of the party.

She kicked. Hard.

Her body was heavy, weighed down by layers of tulle and silk, but panic is a powerful fuel. She clawed at the water, her fingernails scraping against nothing, until her head broke the surface.

"Gah!"

She sucked in a jagged breath, the air tasting of night-blooming jasmine and expensive champagne.

Music. Laughter. The clinking of crystal glasses.

She thrashed, wiping the water from her eyes. She knew this pool. She knew those Grecian columns. She knew the string quartet playing Vivaldi in the corner.

This was the Lancaster estate.

This was her Debutante Ball.

Three years ago.

"Oh my god! Someone help her!" A voice shrieked from the deck.

Ali coughed, her throat raw, trying to paddle to the edge. The weight of the dress was dragging her down again.

Strong hands grabbed her arms.

She was hauled out of the water, scraping her knees against the rough concrete coping. She collapsed onto the cold stone, shivering violently. Her dress, a ridiculous confection of white lace chosen by Carroll, was plastered to her skin, translucent and revealing.

A shadow fell over her.

Before she could curl into a ball to hide her shame, a heavy weight settled onto her shoulders.

A jacket.

It was warm. It smelled of sandalwood, tobacco, and something sharp, like gunpowder.

Her heart hammered against her ribs. She knew that scent.

She jerked her head up, water dripping from her lashes.

She saw a back. Broad shoulders encased in a black dress shirt, walking away with a speed that suggested he wanted nothing to do with the scene he had just interrupted. He melted into the shadows of the pergola before she could see his face.

But she didn't need to see it.

"Ali! Ali, are you okay?"

Cody Stevens came running out of the crowd, his face flushed with feigned concern. He dropped to his knees beside her, his hands hovering but not touching.

"I got you," he panted, loud enough for the gathering crowd to hear. "I pulled you out. Jesus, you scared me."

Ali stared at him.

His hair was perfectly coiffed. His tuxedo was bone dry.

The memory superimposed itself over reality. In her past life, she had been so disoriented, so grateful, that she had believed him. She had let him hold her. She had let him claim the hero's role, which eventually led to their engagement, and her ultimate ruin.

But the fire of the explosion was still searing the edges of her mind.

She looked past Cody.

Standing near the buffet table, holding a flute of champagne, was Catarina Collins. Her lips were curved in a small, tight smile. A smile that vanished the moment she realized Ali was looking at her.

She had pushed her.

Ali remembered the hand on her back. The shove. The water.

She wasn't clumsy. She hadn't slipped.

She gripped the lapels of the jacket draped over her. Her fingers brushed against something hard in the inner pocket.

She slid her hand inside. Cold metal.

A tactical folding knife.

Her breath hitched. This wasn't Cody's jacket. Cody Stevens wouldn't know which end of a knife to hold.

This jacket belonged to the man who had just walked away. The man who had blown up a building for her.

Isadore.

Cody reached out, trying to pull her into a hug for the cameras. "Come here, babe. You're freezing."

Ali didn't flinch. She didn't cry.

She moved with a precision she didn't possess five minutes ago. She shifted her shoulder, dodging his touch.

"Don't," she said. Her voice was raspy, but it didn't shake.

Cody froze, his hands suspended in the air. "Ali?"

She pushed herself up. Her legs trembled, but she locked her knees. She pulled the oversized jacket tighter around herself, wrapping herself in the scent of sandalwood.

She looked at Catarina.

Her smile was gone. In its place was a flicker of something else. Fear.

She saw it. She saw the change in Ali's eyes. The girl who fell into the pool was a victim. The woman who climbed out was something else entirely.

"I'm fine," Ali said, her voice cutting through the murmurs of the crowd.

She turned her back on Cody, on the party, on the life she had lived before.

She clutched the hidden knife in the pocket like a talisman.

This time, she thought, the water dripping from her hair like tears she refused to shed. This time, she would be the one who lit the fuse.