Steel-gray clouds pressed low over the city. In the villa's floor-to-ceiling window, Damien's silhouette wrestled with a silk tie, freshly printed documents steaming slightly on the desk. The photo frame held Elena's Alpine wedding smile, snow-capped peaks blurring behind her veil. His thumb froze on the gilded frame edge, signet ring grinding against platinum wedding band. The razor-sharp jawline tensed.
"Madam changed her schedule?"
The housemaid dipped her head. "Miss Sophia took Madam to Nice for landscape sketching at dawn. Mentioned a month's stay."
Damien's temple pulsed under pressing fingers. "Hm."
Two hundred miles south—
Elena's boot sank into the third mud pit, leather now earth-caked. "This sketching spot exists?" She swiped rain from eyelashes, power lines flickering in the storm.
Sophia kicked aside pine debris. "Just ahead," her voice carried through wet air. "Remember our college hideout?"
The knife slid between ribs with clinical precision. Elena's pupils dilated, mirroring the friend who'd shared dorm secrets. "Sweet dreams," Sophia purred, stiletto heel twisting in the wound.
Steel kissed flesh in rhythmic wet sounds. Elena clutched her stomach, blood welling through fingers. "Why...weren't we..."
"Friends?" Sophia's chuckle sliced through rain. "Your pitying friendship choked me! Heiress playing artist while I fought for crumbs." She watched crimson pool in mud. "Your villa...your adoring husband..." The shovel materialized in her grip. "Mine now."
Lightning fractured the sky, glinting on the shovel's edge. Dirt clods thumped on Elena's chest with each mechanical swing. Blood swirled darkly in rainwater, staining Sophia's humming tune.
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As the last soil settled, Elena's fading vision burned with twin truths: Damien's possible complicity, her silent oath of vengeance. Fingers clawing at mud, she surrendered to viscous darkness.
Elena, in a trance, found herself reminiscing about her campus days, vividly recalling the moment she first forged a bond with Sophia. Aware of Sophia’s modest financial background, Elena’s heart was filled with compassion, and she cared for her newfound friend with utmost attention, striving to alleviate Sophia’s economic burdens.
As the years passed, Sophia began to purchase clothes and bags identical to Elena’s, and even mimicked her gestures and quirks with striking accuracy. Cyna had once cautioned her about this, saying, “Haven’t you noticed how much more like you Sophia has become lately?”
How did she respond at that time? “We’re close friends; a bit of similarity is only natural.”
The dream shifted, and she found herself reliving the scene of introducing Damien to Sophia for the first time after they had become a couple. The moment Sophia laid eyes on the handsome Damien, a spark of admiration lit up her eyes.
Suddenly, the scene took a nightmarish turn. In the dream, Sophia brandished a sharp knife, wildly twisting it within Elena’s body. “Pain… it’s so painful…” Elena cried out inwardly. “Ah ——” She jolted awake from the nightmare, drenched in cold sweat, with beads of perspiration rolling down her forehead. The jumbled memories, intertwined with her deep-rooted hatred for Sophia, gradually pulled her out of the disorienting fog.
“You’re finally awake.” A warm, mellow male voice reached her ears. Elena, bewildered, blurted out, “Who are you? I… I didn’t die?” Sunlight filtered gently through the window, casting a soft glow over the sharply-featured man before her. Even his white coat seemed to pale in comparison. The man replied amicably, “I’m Marcus, the doctor who rescued you. Fortunately, it rained that day. When we found you, you were still clinging to life.” He paused briefly, his expression grave, before continuing slowly, “Who could be so heartless and cruel as to attempt to end your life in such a desolate place with such a heinous method?”
At that moment, the TV in the hospital ward was broadcasting a news item: Damien, the financial magnate, and his wife Elena were set to host a lavish birthday banquet for their son’s fourth birthday at the city’s most opulent hotel. Gazing at the woman on the TV screen who was the spitting image of herself, a flash of fierce determination.