Reborn Heiress: Escaping My Contract Marriage with the Cold CEO
Chapter 51: Cuts Like a Knife

Chapter 51: Cuts Like a Knife

NATHAN JANG

The Jang Tower stood hollow in the dead of night, its polished lobby floors reflecting the cold glow of emergency exit signs. The security desk sat unmanned, a half-drunk coffee still steaming next to the silent monitors.

I took my private elevator and pressed the button for the sixtieth floor. The numbers climbed—30, 40, 50—each ding sounding like a countdown. I stepped out of the elevator alone, my jaw tight. Malone had called it an "incident." Knowing Fiona, that meant murdering anything from plants to computers to people.

Moonlight streamed through the wall of windows, painting silver streaks across the empty desks. The executive floor was too quiet. No assistants at their desks. No security at the doors. Just the hum of the air conditioning and the too-loud click of my dress shoes on marble.

I withdrew my cell phone from my jacket’s inner pocket. "Malone? Where are you?"

"Stuck in one of the main elevators. It stopped working between floors. I have to wait for the on-call maintenance crew to get here. Wait for me, Boss. Don’t confront Fiona on your own."

"I’m hanging up."

Malone knew me too well. He could ask for me to stand down, but I wouldn’t. Whatever Fiona was doing, I needed to stop it and then find a way to get rid of her.

I opened my office door.

The air smelled faintly of aged whiskey and polished mahogany and heavy floral scent of Fiona’s perfume. Floor-to-ceiling windows dominated the far wall, offering a panoramic view of the skyline.

A massive, obsidian-black desk commanded the center of the room, its surface immaculate. Behind it, an ergonomic chair upholstered in the finest Italian leather awaited.

To the left, a seating area of low-slung charcoal sofas surrounded a glass coffee table. A decanter of 30-year-old Macallan sat atop a silver tray, two crystal tumblers beside it, untouched.

The floor was black marble, so polished it mirrored the ceiling’s recessed lighting like a still lake.

I took three steps inside before I saw her.

Fiona.

She stood by the windows, her silhouette edged in silver, the knife in her hand glinting in the low lighting.

"Hello, Nathan," she said.

The door clicked shut behind me.

I kept my voice flat. "Put the knife down."

She turned and offered me an ugly smile. "Who sings that song? The one that says ’it cuts like a knife.’" She hummed a little. "Do you know?"

"Bryan Adams," I said, closing the gap between us.

Her eyes were different. Hollowed out.

I wrenched the knife from her grasp, sending it clattering across the floor. "We’re done with this bullshit."

Fiona’s lips curled into a smile that didn’t reach her dead eyes. "Oh Nathan," she sighed, reaching into her clutch. "You never learn."

The second blade caught me under the ribs. I staggered back, my hand coming away slick and dark. The room tilted violently as my knees hit the black marble floor.

I choked. Looked down. Saw the hilt protruding from my shirt, the fabric already blooming red.

Fiona’s breath huffed against my ear. "You should’ve loved me."

***|***|***|***|***

NATHAN JANG

I woke up next to Vanessa.

For one disorienting second, I didn’t understand why my heart was pounding—until the memories flooded back. Fiona’s knife sliding between my ribs. The cold marble against my cheek as I bled out. That last, triumphant smirk as she stepped over my dying body.

I immediately sat up and did a blood-and-wound check. Nothing.

Reborn. Again. After being murdered by Fiona. Again.

"Goddamn it," I muttered. Beside me, Vanessa stirred but didn’t wake, her chest rising and falling with each steady breath.

I grabbed my cell phone off the nightstand. We were back to the night of the auction, after my dramatic exit with Vanessa. In life number four, I’d made love to Neenie for the first time. The memory of it—her breath hot against my neck, her fingers digging into my back—hit me like a sucker punch.

I wondered if I would ever get to do that again.

Careful not to wake her, I slipped out of bed. The penthouse was silent except for the faint hum of the refrigerator downstairs. Vanessa lay tangled in the sheets, her breathing steady, her blonde hair fanned across the pillow.

I pulled on yesterday’s dress shirt, the fabric still carrying the faint scent of her perfume. My fingers hesitated at the collar where she’d gripped me during our kiss, the memory sending tingling heat through me.

Malone’s text glowed on my lock screen: Marriage bureau clerk arrived early. Ready when you are.

Finally.

I was halfway to the bedroom door when my phone buzzed violently in my hand. The screen lit up with a name that made my stomach twist: Fiona Grand - 47 Missed Calls

The last time I’d seen that name on my caller ID, she’d been standing over me with a bloody knife.

I didn’t hesitate. I blocked her number with a tap.I wish I could block her from re-entering our lives at all. If I had known Fiona was the catalyst for Vanessa and I to suffer endless rebirths, I would’ve told her to stay in France.

The elevator ride down was too slow. I tapped my foot, rolling the wedding band I’d started wearing between my fingers. The doors finally opened with a soft ding—

—and immediately stopped on the 38th floor. Wrong floor.

The doors slid open to reveal an empty hallway.

Then he stepped into view.

Gregory Savage.

He looked exactly like the black-and-white film reels I’d seen—sharp cheekbones, slicked-back hair, that trademark smirk that made you want to punch him even as he charmed you. He was dressed in a 1940s pinstripe suit.

Impossible. Gregory Savage was long dead and buried.

"You’re not real," I said, but my voice sounded hollow even to me.

His smirk widened. "Aren’t I?"

The elevator didn’t move. Didn’t ding. The air smelled suddenly of old film stock and cigar smoke. My pulse kicked into overdrive as fractured memories surfaced—glimpses of Savage from other lives, other deaths. But this wasn’t a memory. I could see the individual threads in his suit, smell the bergamot in his cologne.

"You’re the only one who can end it." His voice dropped an octave, taking on a grainy quality like an old recording.

I clenched my fists. "What the hell are you talking about?"

He reached into his coat—a move that made me tense—and pulled out a knife. Thin. Silver. The blade had strange markings etched near the hilt. When he pressed it into my palm, the metal was unnaturally cold, like it had been kept in a morgue drawer.

"Kill Fiona in this timeline with this blade," he said, his fingers icy against mine, "and the cycle breaks. No more rebirths. No more green tea bitch ruining your lives." His grip tightened painfully. "Do it, and you’ll wake up in your original timeline—right before the car accident. Fiona won’t be reborn. You and Vanessa will be free."

Kill Fiona.

The words reverberated in my skull. I’d fantasized about it in dark moments—after finding Vanessa’s body, after seeing Malone dead on the asphalt...

Behind me, the elevator dinged.

Gregory was gone.

The knife sat heavy in my hand, its edge glinting under the fluorescent lights. I turned it over, noticing the inscription along the blade: Aeternum nox—Eternal night.

"Sir?"

I startled. Malone stood in the lobby, holding a manila envelope. "The clerk’s waiting in the private lounge. Everything’s ready for the license."

I slipped the knife into my pocket, the metal cold against my thigh. "Good."

Malone hesitated. "Sir... Fiona’s been calling the front desk. Says it’s urgent."

I exhaled through my nose. "She’s blocked. If she shows up, have security toss her out."

His eyebrows shot up—I’d never given that order before—but he nodded. "Understood."

I turned toward the lounge when movement caught my eye.

Fiona.

She stood framed in the lobby entrance, her designer dress wrinkled, phone clutched in a white-knuckled grip. When she saw me, her whole face lit up with white lotus desperation.

She rushed forward, arms outstretched like a drowning woman reaching for a lifeline. "Thank God you’re here," she whispered, her voice trembling just enough to sound vulnerable. After all my lives with Vanessa, I recognized the performance—she had used it before, always when she wanted to take me away from my wife.

The lobby’s chandelier cast harsh light on her smudged mascara, and her fingers dug into my arm.

The concierge watched with polite disinterest, but I knew he’d remember this scene. I couldn’t just kill Fiona in the lobby of the Echelon Hotel.

Could I?

What if I wasn’t reborn? What if I got stuck in this timeline and I was arrested for murder?

But Savage had said killing Fiona with the special dagger would end the cycle of rebirths. We could go back to the wedding day, right before Fiona stabbed Vanessa and kidnapped her into the car.

"Nate!" She rushed forward. "Why aren’t you answering? I’ve been—"

I stepped back like she was contagious. "Leave."

She froze. "What?"

"I said leave."

"Y-you don’t mean that."

"I don’t want you. I never wanted you. Vanessa is my bride. My wife. I will only marry her."

For a second, she just stared. Then her face twisted into something ugly. "Vanessa’s poisoning you against me!"

I laughed, harsh and humorless. "The only poison here is you."

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