The pain in my injured ankle shot through me relentlessly.
But it didn’t matter.
I looked down at his pain-dazed eyes, and slowly, I smiled.
“Oh my, you’re so devoted. Willing to sacrifice yourself just to see me ruined here, all to secure a future for your precious little angel?
“This is the warning Shawn gave me, isn’t it? You two had already planned to share her at this point, right? How revolting.”
I lifted my skirt, wiping the blood from his face, dragging it across until the pale fabric was stained with blotches of red.
Then I left him there, running toward the darkening sky and into the grand auditorium.
From a distance, the sound of a soft piano drifted out of the auditorium.
It was the same piece Linda had played in my previous life.
Debussy’s Clair de Lune.
She sat at the pure white piano on stage, wearing a silver cocktail dress.
The stage was shrouded in darkness, except for a single spotlight that illuminated her, like the only flicker of light in a pitch-black night.
Just like in my previous life, when she stepped on my blood at my engagement party to climb higher, her beauty was blinding.
I ran down the narrow aisle between the two rows of seats.
I pushed past the security guards and event hosts trying to stop me.
I vaulted onto the stage.
Standing in the spotlight, I kicked Linda to the ground and slammed my fist onto the piano.
In her stunned, disbelieving gaze, I began to lose control.
“Play, play, play! Go ahead, play as much as you want!
“You sent your little lapdog to ruin me, and you’re still up here playing like nothing’s wrong?”
…
Of course, I knew.
The talent scout invited by Shawn was sitting in the audience right now.
In my previous life, after hearing Linda play “Clair de Lune,” he contacted her at the end of the performance, offering her the one and only special admission spot.
She accepted it.
This was just the first step toward her bright future.
Later, thanks to Shawn’s meticulous planning, Linda was taken under the wing of a legendary figure in the music world, becoming his private disciple.
Because of my role in a film, where I was to play a genius piano prodigy with autism, my agent arranged for me to study under the same mentor.
But in the brief moment I crossed paths with Linda, I was stopped at the door when I returned home that night.
Shawn stood there, looking at me with disdain.
“Sierra, how much longer are you going to keep this up? Just because you’re nothing like Linda, you hate her so much that you’d tear up the sheet music she copied for the mentor?”
