Emma Rhodes has been dead before. In another life she was Celeste Laurent, a famous actress drowned by her fiancé. But death wasn't the end. She woke up in a child's body, trapped in a family that would become her prison.

For sixteen years, Emma watched her stepmother Juliette poison her mother, push her down the stairs, and marry her father. She endured the cruelty of her stepsister Evelyn. She learned to be invisible.

Then her father's debts caught up with him. The man who owns the debt is Nicholas White, a billionaire CEO of the largest entertainment empire in the city, and the most dangerous man alive. He doesn't want money. He wants Emma.

The marriage contract is signed. Emma becomes Mrs. White, a pawn in a game she doesn't understand. But Nicholas has secrets too. He is the Ghost, a shadow king who controls the underworld. And for fifteen years, he has been hunting the man who murdered his mother, the same man who killed Celeste Laurent.

He doesn't know Emma is Celeste reborn. He only knows that when he looks at her, something in him recognizes something in her.

As Emma steps into the spotlight, building an acting career that terrifies her enemies, she and Nicholas are drawn into a war against Juliette, her mysterious backer Viktor Cross, and a criminal organization called the Consortium. Trust is earned in blood. Love grows in the darkness between revenge and survival.

But Viktor knows what Emma really is. He calls it the Echo Phenomenon. And he doesn't want her dead,he wants to own her.

Emma died once. She won't die again.

Emma found it on the breakfast table, propped against her coffee cup like a threat. Cream-colored cardstock. Gold embossing. The kind of old-money elegance that Juliette had spent years perfecting.


You are cordially invited to a dinner celebrating the engagement of Mr. Nicholas White and Miss Emma Rhodes.


Emma read the words three times before she could process them. Her father. Her stepmother. Hosting a celebration for the engagement they had tried to prevent.


Nicholas walked into the kitchen, already dressed for the day, his eyes landing on the invitation in her hand.


"Juliette's work," he said, not a question.


"She's trying to save face." Emma set down the invitation. "If she pretends to support the marriage, she can claim credit for it. 'My stepdaughter married Nicholas White. I made it happen.'"


"Then she tells everyone I'm ashamed of my family. That I've forgotten where I came from." Emma's jaw tightened. "Either way, she wins."


Nicholas walked to the counter and poured himself a cup of coffee. He didn't speak for a long moment. Just stood there, looking out the window at the gray morning light.


"We will go to dinner. We smile. We let her play the doting stepmother." He turned to face her. "And then we destroy her."


The words were cold, final. Emma felt something shift in her chest… fear, maybe, or excitement.


"Not yet." He walked to her, stopping inches away. "But when we do this, we do it right. No loose ends. No second chances. She falls so hard she never gets up again."


Emma looked up at him. At this man who had spent twenty-two years planning his revenge. Who had turned patience into a weapon.


He smiled… not the sharp, dangerous smile she had seen before, but something softer. Something that looked almost like pride.


"That's my girl."… he pecked her cheek.


Chapter 11 - Chapter Eleven.