The Villainess Stepmother's Ruthless New Life

Pain radiated from the base of Gloria's skull, a sharp, rhythmic thumping that synced perfectly with the frantic beating of her heart.

Her eyes snapped open.

The first thing that hit her was the smell. It was a suffocating blend of expensive leather polish, stale coffee, and the metallic tang of fear.

A blurry figure loomed in front of her, thrusting a black object toward her face.

"Sign it, Mrs. Sterling. It is the best offer you are going to get," a voice said. It was oily, condescending, and laced with false sympathy. "And frankly, considering the… compromising photographs we have of your little shopping trips on the company dime, it's more than fair."

Gloria blinked, her vision sharpening.

She was sitting in a high-back leather chair in a room that screamed corporate sterility.

Across the mahogany table sat a man in a pinstripe suit that cost more than most cars. His name was Vance. He was a lawyer. And he was a shark.

Gloria looked down at the document beneath her hand.

Asset Renunciation Agreement.

The words seemed to float on the page, detaching themselves from the paper and rearranging into a terrifying reality.

Memories that did not belong to her flooded her brain in a violent torrent.

She wasn't just Gloria. She was that Gloria. Gloria Peck. The gold digger. The villainess of The Sterling Legacy. The woman who married Arthur Sterling for his trust fund, abused his children, and was destined to die alone, bankrupt, and frozen on a park bench in the story's final pages.

She gasped, the air catching in her throat like a fishhook.

She looked at the date on her watch. This was the first act. The beginning of the end.

Arthur Sterling had been missing for three months after a plane crash in the Andes. everyone assumed he was dead. Vance was here to bully the "grieving" widow into signing away her rights to the estate before the body was even found.

"Gloria?" Vance tapped the paper with his index finger. A small dot of ink bled into the white fiber. "The board is waiting. The settlement is generous."

Generous.

She scanned the numbers. A lump sum of fifty thousand dollars.

In her past life, fifty thousand was a down payment on a house. In this life, Gloria Peck had gambling debts totaling five million dollars. Signing this paper wasn't a settlement. It was a death sentence.

She shifted her gaze to the corner of the room.

A boy sat there. He looked about fourteen, though his eyes were ancient. He wore a prep school blazer that was slightly too big for his thin frame.

Jones Sterling. Arthur's eldest son.

He was staring at her with a hatred so pure it felt like a physical weight on her skin.

In the book, Gloria signed the papers, took the cash, and left Jones to the wolves. Jones would grow up to be a cold, ruthless antagonist who eventually destroyed everything Gloria touched.

Survival