Chlorine-scented pool water burst from the woman's mouth as she suddenly choked violently. Her body jerked upward on reflex. Her lungs burned, as if they had been wrung dry after being submerged for too long. She coughed harshly, her fingers clawing at the cold, slippery edge of the pool. Her wet hair clung to her cheeks and neck, while the pastel dress she wore felt heavy, soaked through and plastered against her skin.
She gasped for air. For a few seconds, she could hear nothing but the frantic pounding of her own heartbeat rapid, chaotic, hammering mercilessly against her chest.
Elena's vision was still blurred as she slowly lifted her face. Garden lights glowed softly overhead, their reflections trembling across the rippling surface of the water. Silhouettes gathered around the edge of the pool. Whispers drifted through the air faint, yet sharp enough to pierce her ears.
Little by little, her sight began to focus. And the world seemed to stop. She struggled to sit upright, one hand clutching her throbbing head. "Where am I?" she asked softly, confusion lacing her voice.
She tried to stand, though her legs were still weak. One hand remained pressed to her heavy temple. "Wasn't I just hit by a car?" she murmured. "I was reading the novel I was revising."
The memory of the blinding headlights, the screech of brakes, and her body being thrown several meters away still felt painfully real.
"Elena!"
A man's voice called her name cold, sharp, and filled with anger.
Elena flinched and turned toward the source of the voice. Before her stood a man in a dark suit, now drenched. His face was tense, his jaw clenched as though restraining something. There was no concern in his gaze, only cold disappointment.
Beside him stood a woman wrapped in a thick towel. Her hair was wet, her face pale. She gripped the man's hand tightly, as if seeking protection.
Elena froze, their faces were far too familiar, and far too painful to look at. The man, he looked strikingly similar to her ex-boyfriend. The sharp lines of his face, the way he looked at her with quiet judgment, even the faint crease between his brows when he was angry, it was all the same.
And the woman beside him, her face was like a reflection of her former best friend. The innocent expression Elena had once trusted. The gentle gaze that had concealed betrayal.
Elena's chest tightened. This was impossible. Her ex-boyfriend could not be here. Her former best friend could not be standing before her now.
"You?" Her voice was hoarse, her throat still burning. "Why are you here?"
The emotions she hadn't yet processed erupted into sudden fury. Her body trembled, whether from the cold or from anger, she didn't know.
"Sst…" Elena winced, clutching her temple.
A sharp pain suddenly throbbed in her head, as though something were forcing its way into her mind. Flash after flash struck her mercilessly. An engagement party. Elite guests. Condescending stares. A heated exchange by the pool. A subtle but deliberate push. A body losing balance. Water swallowing her entire vision.
Elena jolted, she hadn't slipped. She had been pushed by the woman now standing beside that man.
"Elena! Stop pretending!" the man's voice rose sharply, cutting through the chaos in her head. "Today we got engaged, just like you wanted! Everyone came to celebrate us. But you…" He pointed at her, accusation burning in his eyes. "Why are you still trying to hurt Tania?"
That name echoed loudly in her mind. Tania, not the name of her former best friend. Not from her old world. Elena's heartbeat turned irregular. The man was not her ex-boyfriend. The woman was not her former friend. And yet their faces were hauntingly similar to fragments of her past.
Foreign memories began to merge with her consciousness. Elena looked at them both in turn. Her anger slowly shifted into something colder, something closer to realization.
"So… I've entered the novel I was reviewing before approving it for the next stage. The very novel whose plot hole I was still trying to figure out," Elena murmured inwardly, her breathing not yet fully steady.
Her chest rose and fell slowly. The garden lights felt too bright, and the guests' whispers buzzed like restless bees circling endlessly around her head.
"And I… have become the cruel female antagonist, the villain whom no one would even search for after her death?" she thought again.
The memory was clear. She remembered how Elena De Luca's ending had been written so coldly, isolated, framed, and ultimately dying miserably at the hands of the amnesiac mafia boss. There was no regret from anyone. No final embrace. Not even a proper funeral scene.
She had frowned when she first read that part. Now, she could feel that very fate stalking her.
"Elena De Luca!" The sharp voice sliced through her thoughts.
Leonardo Santoro - the name now felt both unfamiliar and dangerously close. Because Elena remained silent, staring blankly at a single point, Leonardo stepped closer. His expression was a mixture of irritation and impatience.
"Stop yelling," Elena snapped without thinking.
The atmosphere froze instantly. Several guests standing not far from them exchanged glances.
"Your brain still works, doesn't it?" Elena continued, her gaze sharp. Her wet eyes now burned with something far hotter than pool water. "If it does, then you shouldn't be that stupid."
That single sentence landed like a resounding slap in the middle of the luxurious party. Leonardo fell silent, his jaw tightening.
Elena looked at the man's face with bold defiance. A face far too similar to her ex-boyfriend from her own world, the sharp jawline, the confident gaze, the way he stood as if he were always the one in the right.
She had the overwhelming urge to slap that face. To curse at him without restraint. To release all the pain she had once swallowed and never expressed. But she held herself back, because he was not her ex-boyfriend. He was Leonardo Santoro - her fiancé. And according to the novel's storyline, he would be the first person to destroy her reputation in order to protect another woman.
"Elena, you …," Leonardo tried to speak, but his words were cut off.
The whispers were clearer now.
"They just got engaged…"
"Why is he defending the woman beside him instead?"
"Elena almost drowned earlier. If the servant hadn't pulled her out of the pool, it might have been worse."
"But look, he hugged Tania first."
"What kind of fiancé is that?"
The murmurs were no longer faint. They were sharp, sharp enough to slice through anyone's pride who happened to hear them.
Tania stood beside Leonardo with a pale face, her fingers clutching his arm as though she were the most fragile victim of the night.
Elena clenched her teeth. "Even everyone else can see it clearly," she muttered inwardly, "but this damn fiancé of mine is still blind because of his damn best friend."
Yet instead of continuing to look at Leonardo, Elena averted her gaze. She was too disgusted by the scene, something she had once read with professional detachment as an editor, but which now felt painfully personal.
Her eyes swept across the crowd, then stopped. A man stood near a window on the second floor of the house. His white shirt stood in stark contrast to the dark suits of the other guests. Along his shoulder, there was a dark red stain, not spilled wine, but dried blood tracing thin cuts along his arm and chest. As if he had just gone through something far more brutal than an engagement party.
His hair was slightly disheveled, and his face was pale yet resolute. The look in his eyes was neither curiosity nor pity, but a cold, controlled hatred.
Not directed at Tania, not at Leonardo, but at her, Elena.
A strange shiver ran through her chest. She recognized that gaze. She had read its description before.
The man who had hated Elena De Luca from the very beginning of the story. The man who, in the end, would be the one to hurt her until she met a miserable death. And now, he was looking at her, as if confirming that the woman before him truly deserved everything that was destined to happen.
For the first time that night, Elena felt something more terrifying than anger. Not because she had become the villain, but because every piece on the board was already in place, and the story had begun.