Genevieve Aveline Laurent sat quietly at the edge of her empire—partly in shadow, partly wrapped in silk.
Her breath came slower now. Her blood moved through her veins like time running out.
She touched the hem of her white robe. The fabric felt soft… too soft for a woman so close to death.
The lights were off. The staff had gone home.
The Laurent Estate—so vast, so full of stories—had fallen silent.
Only one sound remained.
The sound of someone dying.
She looked at her reflection. The woman in the mirror still looked regal.
At seventy-six, her skin had a warm glow, like honey in sunlight. Her silver hair fell in soft waves. She had sharp cheekbones and full lips painted in rose. Her neck was bare.
No jewellery. No drama. She wanted to leave this world quietly.
But death was never quiet in the Laurent bloodline.
She turned to the television, which had been on all day, playing forgotten news.
Then the screen changed.
A fire.
"A tragic fire occurred on the south side of Lagos. Many feared dead. But one man walked out of the smoke…"
Her eyes froze.
There he was.
A man with soot-darkened skin. Holding a child in his arms. Eyes hollow—not angry, not calm, just… haunted.
"Adex Richardson is a firefighter… and a hero."
Genevieve stopped breathing.
Adex.
The name hit her like a memory wrapped in lightning.
He didn't smile. Not even when the crowd clapped for him, he looked like a man with nothing to lose.
And yet—he had returned.
Genevieve leaned back, tears filling her eyes.
She had lived many lives. Reborn over and over, chasing something she never quite reached.
This time, she wouldn't return.
No more reincarnations. No rewinding. No second chances.
The thread had been cut.
But she would not go quietly.
Not with unfinished business.
She hadn't always been the elegant woman people admired.
Once, she was a little girl in a golden cage. Born into wealth and raised in shadows.
Her mother clutched the champagne more than she ever held her.
Her father hid secrets in every pocket and spoke in silence.
So Genevieve learned.
To smile without meaning it.
To walk without sound.
To hide her brilliance behind her lashes.
But her story began even earlier.
The nurses whispered when she was born.
She didn't cry.
She stared, eyes wide, unblinking. As if she already knew everyone in the room.
The lights went off and on. The air became quiet.
Her mother claimed her skin burned like candle wax.
Her father dropped his glass.
"She sees too much," he said. "This one came back with memory."
And he was right.
In all her past lives, Genevieve had never borne a child.
War. Betrayal. Poison. Fire. Death always came first.
But she always returned.
Chasing one thing.
To give life.
To leave something behind.
Then came Eloise.
Her miracle.
Her undoing.
The moment Genevieve held her, she knew—this was the final time.
No more second chances.
No more returns.
And for once, she wasn't afraid.
Because now… she had someone to love.
Even as her body grew weaker—bones like paper, voice thin as a whisper—she felt something dark hovering near her daughter.
She couldn't lift a spoon anymore. But her mind still moved like fire.
She searched.
Through old names.
Buried histories.
Whispers spoken behind curtains.
And that's when she found him.
Damien Holt.
Handsome, dangerous, and smooth like poison in wine.
He entered Eloise's life with flowers and promises.
Young enough to charm her.
Old enough to control her.
He talked of the future.
Wore black to Genevieve's funeral… before she had even died.
She saw it all.
But no one believed her anymore.
The staff whispered about memory loss.
The doctors gave her pills.
She flushed them all down the sink.
Because they didn't know the truth.
She was preparing a resurrection.
Every Laurent tomb held secrets.
She carved one of her own beneath her grave.
A silent underground room bathed in white.
There, she studied.
Whispers. Blood signs. Ghost stories that weren't stories at all.
She called out to the world.
To the forgotten. To the betrayed. To the buried.
And one answered.
Adex Malik Richardson.
Dead. Discarded. Dangerous.
Just like her.
She gave him one final command.
"If I cannot protect my daughter in life…
Then let me summon someone who still has something to protect."
Now, she stood as a spirit.
Watching him.
Adex.
Alive… but not.
Walking through a world that tried to erase him.
And he would return.
Not as a man.
Not as a monster.
But something worse.
A father.
A protector with nothing to lose.
And Genevieve?
She remained.
A soul suspended. A mother unburied.
Still watching.
Tonight, something stirred above her tomb.
A breath.
A step.
A presence.
She turned slowly from the mirror.
Her voice barely rose above a whisper.
"You came."
In the reflection…
A shadow blocked the light.
And Genevieve Aveline Laurent smiled.