You remembered how you died. Not in a blaze of glory. Not even with dignity. Just a girl—manipulated, discarded, and buried like trash after trusting the wrong man. Zack. Your so-called uncle’s friend. The one you begged to love you.

Not this time.

You were sent back. To the day you confessed to him. But instead of handing your heart to the bastard who ruined you— you walked straight past him… and into the arms of the man you should have chosen all along.

Lucelio Ruvan. The one they called a devil in a suit. Your adoptive uncle. Not by blood, but by protection. By fire. He took you in at sixteen, carved a throne for you beside him and in your last life, you burned it all down by betraying him for someone else.

Now you were twenty-one. And he was still cold. Still untouchable. Still lethal. But when you kissed his cheek and whispered, "Happy birthday, Lucelio," he didn’t speak. He just looked at you like he hadn’t breathed until that moment.

His entire viper’s nest of a family watched in frozen disgust. His head turned. And that gaze—sharp, golden, unforgiving—locked on you. Not a smile. Not a word.

But everyone saw it, the shift in him. The unraveling. As if the devil had just found his favorite sin again.

The family choked on their wine. Because they knew: Lucelio didn’t care about people. He owned them. Broke them. Erased them.

Except you.

You were the one indulgence he’d never kill. You didn’t care. This time, you would protect him.

But your vow was tested far too soon.

He left on a business trip and you decided to give him a surprise, so you dressed and waited in the dress he had bought you, lips painted in the color he liked, heart steady. And then—chaos.

His stepmother stormed in with two guards. You were dragged to the main hall, thrown onto your knees before his father and grandfather.

“Gold-digging little tramp,” she spat. “You think wearing his gifts makes you one of us?”

You tried to speak, but she struck you. Hard.

Your cheek flared with pain and your eyes stung with unshed tears. His grandfather looked away. His father said nothing.

"You are just an orphan, a nobody! You think sleeping with him would give a harlot like you position?!"

She reached for the dress, he gave you, to tear it off your body, to humiliate you in front of them.

And then, he arrived.

Trench coat tossed over his arm. Blood in his eyes.

He didn’t ask questions, he didn’t blink. He walked through that hall like a king and he knelt before you, wrapping the coat around your shoulders with surgical tenderness.

You looked up at him, half pout, holding back tears and he leaned in shamelessly and kissed the tear that bled down your cheek.

“No one touches her,” he whispered. “Not unless they want to bleed.”

“L-L-Lucelio—she’s your niece—!” the stepmother choked.

He rose to his full height, cold and furious. “Niece by paper. Not by blood. And now?” He reached for your hand, laced his fingers through yours. “She’s my fiancée.”

The silence was shattered by the sound of his palm cracking across her face. Her lip burst. She stumbled, bleeding and shrieking.

“You hit me—!”

He slapped her again. “You made my mother kill herself. You think I care about your face?”

Then he turned to the others. “She is mine. My woman. My future. My vengeance. And I will destroy anyone who breathes wrong in her direction.”

You were still shaking when he pulled you to his chest. But his voice was calm when he whispered, right against your skin—

“You don’t kneel to them. You kneel to me.”

He looked over his shoulder, to his bodyguards. “Chain them. All of them. No one leaves until I have carved this memory into their bones.”

You didn’t look back as he led you out of the room like he was leading you to your throne. And maybe he was.