Reborn To Marry The Ruined Billionaire

Her lungs were on fire.

It wasn't a dull ache. It was a literal, agonizing scorch that tore through the delicate tissue of her chest.

Janet shot up from the lumpy mattress. Her hands clawed desperately at her own throat, her fingernails digging into her skin until they left angry red crescents. She was gasping, sucking in massive, greedy lungfuls of air. The oxygen in her childhood bedroom tasted like stale dust, damp wood, and cheap laundry detergent, but she swallowed it down like a dying woman finding water in a wasteland.

Her heart hammered against her ribs in a frantic, bruising rhythm. It beat so hard it made her vision blur. The phantom sensation of thick smoke and metallic blood still coated the back of her tongue.

She threw her legs over the edge of the bed. Her knees buckled the second her bare feet slapped against the cold, warped linoleum floor. She stumbled forward, her shoulder slamming hard into the doorframe, but she didn't stop. She threw herself into the tiny, cramped bathroom.

Her hands slammed down on the edges of the porcelain sink. She gripped it so tight her knuckles turned a stark, bone-white. She forced her head up. She forced herself to look into the cracked mirror.

The face looking back at her wasn't charred. The skin wasn't melting off her cheekbones. There were no blackened, blistered wounds from the explosion that had ended her life. She was young. Her skin was pale, covered in a thin sheen of cold sweat, but it was flawless.

Her phone vibrated on the edge of the sink. She snatched it up. Her thumb trembled as she pressed the power button. The harsh blue light of the screen illuminated the dark bathroom.

The date stared back at her. Three years ago.

It was the exact day her mother had signed the papers. The day she was forced into a marriage contract with the Bradford family.

Before Janet could process the impossibility of her own breathing, a sharp, blinding spike of agony drove itself directly behind her eyes. She dropped the phone. It clattered into the sink bowl.

She gripped her head, a low groan tearing from her throat. It wasn't a headache. It was an upload.

A fragmented, disorienting surge of memories washed over her. It wasn't a clear picture, but a chaotic storm of instincts and fractured images that tore through her synapses. She felt a strange, latent heat deep within her chest, a dormant spark she couldn't quite understand or control. The ghost of a life she hadn't fully lived yet pressed against her skull, leaving her dizzy but hyper-aware. Vague echoes of medical terminology and anatomical structures flickered at the edges of her consciousness, refusing to fully materialize. She gasped, her spine arching backward as a warm, terrifyingly unfamiliar sensation hummed under her skin. It was an awakening, a raw and unpolished potential that left her trembling, gripping the edges of the sink as she tried to