Billion Dollar Mistake

The cold steel of a folding hunting knife plunged deep into my chest. It shredded my heart. Chloe, my twin sister who had just gotten out of prison, yanked the blade free.

A twisted smirk stretched across her face. In my past life, a holographic system panel had materialized right in front of us. [One billion dollars or your biological mother.

Which do you choose?] She snatched the billion dollars without a second thought and married into Vaughn's ultrawealthy dynasty. But the empire crumbled.

Her scumbag husband took the money and ran. She became the pathetic fall girl and got thrown behind bars.

Meanwhile, I followed our mother into her new marriage and lived a quiet, stable life. The very first thing Chloe did when she got out?

She showed up at my front door and stabbed me to death. A gasp ripped from my throat. My eyes snapped open.

The blinding system panel hovered in midair once again. [One billion dollars or your biological mother.

Which do you choose?] Chloe instantly locked her arms around our mother's elbow. "I choose Mom!" She glared at me, her chin tilted up in a smug challenge. I stared at her.

I bit the inside of my cheek so hard I tasted copper, just to stop myself from bursting into laughter right then and there. Perfect.

Someone was finally going to take my place in that cannibalistic hellhole.

Chapter 1 "I choose Mom." My twin sister, Chloe, spoke with a smirk so smug she didn't even bother to hide it.

It was the exact same expression she wore in our past life when she made her choice. Last time, she snatched the billion dollars and ended up in a gutter.

Clearly, she thinks she's cracked the code this time. I was left with no choice.

I had to accept the billiondollar dowry from the Vaughn family and marry their heir—Vaughn, the son of the wealthiest man in the country. Our wedding was a media circus.

Every titan of industry and socialite showed up. Everyone except the groom. In my past life, it was the same for Chloe. It's hilarious, really. Vaughn is incredibly juvenile.

He skipped his own wedding just to prove some twisted point about being "loyal" to his "Old Flame," Lyla. I knew the truth.

Whether he married my sister in the last life or me in this one, it was only because his family was breathing down his neck. And because we happened to look exactly like her.

As he put it: "Passable." The groom's absence turned the venue into a cringeworthy mess. I stood at the altar next to the officiant, catching a glimpse of Chloe in the crowd.

Her face was a mask of pure mockery. In the previous life, she had been the one in this position.

She'd thrown a temper tantrum, sobbing hysterically and turning a bad situation into a total catastrophe. She was clearly here for a frontrow seat to my downfall.

Chloe has always been like this—incapable of handling it if I'm doing better than her. When we were kids, she'd play while I studied.

When I got awards, she'd recruit school bullies to harass me. Honestly, I should thank her. Years of her nonsense turned my skin into armor.

I glided through the ceremony with a perfect, practiced smile, letting the awkwardness bounce right off me.

During the lavish champagne reception, as I worked the room of highsociety elites, several matriarchs from oldmoney Wall Street families showered me with praise.

They admired the grace I displayed, noting that even while facing a groomless wedding alone, I possessed the poise of a toptier socialite.

They thought I was holding back a tidal wave of humiliation. They had no idea I genuinely didn't give a damn. It's just a wedding. Who cares if the groom shows up?

As long as that billion dollars hits my account, we're good. I didn't marry that idiot for his personality.

That night, the moment we stepped through the front door, my motherinlaw went nuclear on Vaughn.

She screamed at him for being an immature brat who nearly ruined the family's reputation. "Do you have any idea how close we came to being the laughingstock of the city?

If Fallon hadn't held that room together, we'd be finished!" Vaughn just stood there, looking indignant.

My motherinlaw shook her head in disappointment. "I don't know what else you want. You think Fallon is beneath you?

If anything, we're the ones who lucked out." "Do you even know that Fallon is—" "Enough!" Vaughn snapped, cutting her off. "I don't care who she is!" He stood up from the sofa and bridged the gap between us in three long strides.

He glared down at me, his eyes cold and devoid of any warmth. "Listen, you're nothing but a placeholder to satisfy the terms of my family's trust fund.

You signed the prenup, so stay in your lane.

I'm never touching you, and don't even think about trying to crawl into my bed." Chapter 2 God, the stench of his stupidity was suffocating.

If my motherinlaw hadn't been standing right there, I would have told him to back the hell up. I'm allergic to idiots.

I plastered on the fakest smile I could muster. "That works out perfectly." Chloe was even more impatient than I thought.

I hadn't even been married for a month, and she was already itching to show off.

To make sure I wouldn't reject her invitation, she fed our mother a bulletproof excuse to pass along: "Your sister found a really nice boyfriend, but I'm worried she's getting scammed.

Could you do me a favor and vet the guy for me?" We met at a coffee shop she picked out.

We hadn't even exchanged pleasantries before she started bragging about how this was her absolute favorite spot in the city.

She looped her arm through Wyatt's, flashing a sickeningly sweet smile. "Wyatt spoils me rotten.

He knew I loved it here, so he immediately bought me a premium annual membership." I knew it.

With Chloe flipping burgers for minimum wage, there was no way she could afford an exclusive membersonly café that charged over a hundred bucks a head.

Turns out she just found a Sugar Daddy to fund her little power trip. I didn't bat an eyelash.

I offered a polite, practiced smile. "Well then, I suppose I should thank Wyatt for his patronage to my business." That's right. I owned this café.

Sitting on a billiondollar trust fund and letting it collect dust in a bank account was incredibly boring. Throwing some cash into a few investments was the natural next step.

Chloe, who had been cradling her artisanal latte to look sophisticated, slammed her cup onto the saucer. "Don't just throw money around blindly.

You'll go bankrupt." Catching the sudden look of confusion Wyatt shot her, she quickly picked her cup back up and took a delicate sip. "What I mean is, I've finally seen the light.

Money doesn't matter at all. The only thing that matters is if the person beside you has a genuine heart." That opened the floodgates.

She launched into a monologue about Wyatt's supposed virtues—how he was a young, successful visionary, and how he catered to her every whim.

I stared at Chloe, feeling nothing but pity. What kind of delusion was she living in? She got a second chance at life, and her brain was still defective.

Money wasn't as important as a man's heart? What kind of psychotic trash was she spewing? Besides, I knew exactly what kind of garbage Wyatt was.

In my past life, I actually dated him for a while. We met at a dinner party hosted by Douglas.

Back then, Wyatt was Douglas's star protégé, and my mother was engaged to marry Douglas. Wyatt looked the part.

He was handsome, and at barely thirty, he was already parading around as a toptier industry expert. He treated me like royalty.

When a guy like that pursues you relentlessly, it's hard to find a reason to say no. But my mother, brainwashed by Douglas's advice, flatout refused to give us her blessing.

Desperate, Wyatt actually suggested we get pregnant first to force her hand. I shut that down immediately. The moment I rejected him, his toxic true colors bled through.

He went scorchedearth on all my social media, flooding it with AIgenerated deepfake nudes of me. He even spammed them to every single one of my professional work chats.

It cost me a fortune in legal fees to finally crush that disgusting smear campaign. I found out later exactly why he was in such a rush to lock me down.

His whole "industry expert" persona was a fabrication.

He was getting booted from his corporate job, and he wanted to leverage Douglas's status as a university professor to secure a cushy academic position.

A man like that possessing a genuine heart? Even if he did, it was nothing but pure, unadulterated trash.

Chapter 3 But his garbage behavior was child's play compared to Douglas's filthy, twisted schemes. While Wyatt was in the restroom, I decided to give Chloe a reality check.

She was my biological sister, after all, and I didn't want to watch her get dragged into that piece of trash's clutches. "Stop wasting your time on Wyatt.

Douglas and our mother are never going to sign off on him." I took a slow sip of my coffee, letting the silence hang for a second. "Actually, to be more precise, they aren't going to sign off on anyone you date." "Cut the crap.

You're just jealous," Chloe scoffed. "Your husband won't even touch you, so you can't stand seeing Wyatt and me being affectionate.

Besides, Douglas is incredibly good to me." "If you two didn't get along in the past, it's just because you have a miserable, unlikable personality!" I let out a dry, breathy laugh. "Right.

If you really think Douglas favors you, then I have nothing left to say." You can't save someone hellbent on drowning themselves. Lately, I had been completely swamped.

I was too busy making my money reproduce. Aside from the café, I actually owned several other lucrative properties.

Throwing capital around was intoxicatingly smooth when you actually had liquidity, and I was finally living out my past life's entrepreneurial ambitions.

Back then, I had hustled like a maniac at the very bottom just to scrape together my first bucket of gold.

I learned the entire game inside out, from the supply chain straight down to the retail end.

But in a society monopolized by corporate capitalism, a bottomtier wage slave trying to save enough pennies to jump social classes was a total pipe dream.

I was trapped in that rundown, decaying apartment right up until the day I died. Looking back, though, grinding through those deadend jobs gave me an edge.

I understood the market, the consumer base, and, most importantly, the labor force in a way those trustfund investors never could.

Nearly six months in, my billiondollar principal hadn't shrunk a single dime. In fact, it had multiplied significantly.

But I had zero intention of breathing a word of that to anyone.

One afternoon, I was lounging on my bed, scrolling through my offshore account balances and thoroughly enjoying the view, when Vaughn shoved the bedroom door open.

He stood there, glaring at me with a sour expression. "Don't think playing hard to get is going to grab my attention, woman." I slowly looked up from my phone, staring at him like he was a braindamaged lab rat.

What an idiot. "If you're bored, go find a hobby," I said smoothly, flicking my eyes back to my screen. "Stop hovering around me.

I'm busy counting my cash, and I don't have the bandwidth to entertain you." Vaughn's jaw tightened as some unprovoked temper flared up.

He pointed an accusatory finger at me. "Money, money, money. You're just like every other gold digger." "All you know how to do is spend." I scoffed internally.

I knew exactly what happened to women who only knew how to spend.

I knew it far better than he ever could, especially with Chloe's disastrous past life serving as a textbook cautionary tale. Back then, she had been a brainless spendthrift.

She burned through her entire billiondollar dowry in barely two years.

Only when her bank accounts hit zero did she suddenly remember she needed to play the devoted wife to maintain her marriage. But it was too late.

By that point, Vaughn was already hopelessly hooked on his precious Old Flame. I wasn't her.

I never had the slightest intention of salvaging a marriage that didn't exist in the first place. Why would I waste a single second of my life on something so entirely pointless?

Stacking my own empire was infinitely more satisfying. Chapter 4 A month later, my motherinlaw and I boarded a private jet to Monaco. She was going for a vacation.

I was going for two reasons: to scout the international entertainment market, and to escape Vaughn. I couldn't stomach looking at him for one more second.

Lately, he had been popping up in my personal space way too often, constantly pulling his overbearing CEO routine. "Woman, playing hard to get is useless.

I'm not going to look at you twice." I didn't even have the words to express my disgust. I despised men who lounged around all day with absolutely nothing to do.

With a CEO like him at the helm, how could their corporate empire survive? Vaughn quickly provided a physical demonstration of the answer: it couldn't.

He possessed zero fundamental decisionmaking skills. During the two weeks we spent in Monaco, my motherinlaw's phone blew up daily with corporate emergencies.

The majority of those calls were from Vaughn himself. The man was pushing thirty, yet he acted like a toddler asking mommy for permission to cross the street.

He couldn't make a single judgment call, let alone navigate the ruthless shifting tides of the business world.

My motherinlaw rubbed her temples, ordered her assistant to pack the bags, and booked an early flight back to the States. "I took this vacation to see if Vaughn could manage the board without me holding his hand," she said. "Clearly, I overestimated him.

You, on the other hand, are miles ahead of him." "Watching you scout investments these past few days reminds me of when I helped his father build our empire from the ground up.

I stand by what I said.

Our family marrying a girl like you was the real comeup." Looking at the composed, sharp matriarch in front of me, I couldn't bridge the gap between her and the wicked monster Chloe always complained about.

Then it clicked. My motherinlaw wasn't targeting anyone specifically. She just fundamentally despised useless people.

She sneered at her own incompetent son; of course she would eviscerate a brainless golddigger daughterinlaw like Chloe.

Fortunately, when it came to loathing dead weight, we spoke the exact same language.

The minute I landed back on American soil, I acquired a bankrupt, toptier Hollywood talent agency and immediately launched nationwide auditions for potential rising stars.

I was going to carve out my slice of the entertainment industry, and I intended to swallow it whole. When my motherinlaw found out, she backed my play entirely.

She injected massive capital into my agency and leveraged her deeprooted connections to secure premium screen time for my new recruits. At first, I hesitated.

I didn't want to owe her a favor of that magnitude. But she shut down my concerns with one sentence: "Don't flatter yourself into thinking I'm just pampering you.

This is strictly business." "A smart investor never puts all her eggs in one basket, especially when the Vaughn family's basket is already rotting from the inside out." With her leverage pushing them forward, my rookies quickly gained traction.

Conveniently, a phenomenal reality show, built to rival America's Got Talent, was in the final stages of preproduction.

I bypassed the lines and shoved my stars straight into the live auditions.

And as the show's largest silent investor, I slid right into the exclusive seat reserved for the toxic lead judge.

The contestants from rival agencies marched onto the stage one by one to show off their acts. But everyone in the room knew the unspoken truth.

They were just cannon fodder, cheap background props designed solely to elevate the main event about to step into the spotlight. "Hi everyone, my name is Lyla." Lyla.

The undisputed crowd favorite to win the entire competition. And Vaughn's precious, untouchable Old Flame.

Chapter 5 I had to admit, Lyla's face was worth every penny she spent on it. It was flawless. No wonder an idiot like Vaughn lost his mind over her.

But her actual talent was the exact opposite of her looks. She butchered a rap routine with zero rhythm.

It made my stomach physically churn. "Your image is highly marketable, but your technical skills need serious work." I thought I was being diplomatic. I underestimated her PR team.

They were just as toxic as she was, immediately spinning a massive victim narrative.

Lyla started casually dropping hints about her history with Vaughn in interviews, weaponizing the media to paint me as the villain—a desperate gold digger who forced her way into a billionaire dynasty and stole her true love.

After just one episode, our drama hijacked the entire show, completely overshadowing the other contestants. It was exactly what her team wanted.

Now, the internet was holding its breath, waiting for Vaughn to weigh in.

Anyone with half a brain in the corporate world knew a CEO of a publicly traded conglomerate would never address cheap tabloid gossip.

But they severely overestimated Vaughn's intelligence. My phone buzzed.

It was him. "Just admit you're playing hard to get, and I'll graciously help you clean up this mess." "You absolute braindead moron." I snapped the words I'd been holding in for months and ended the call.

Thirty minutes later, the breaking news alerts hit my screen. Vaughn Dynasty CEO Publicly Defends Lyla, Reveals Sentimental Token of Affection.

I slammed on the brakes outside his headquarters, marched straight into his office, and slapped him so hard the sound echoed off the glass walls. "Are you clinically braindead?" He pressed a hand to his burning cheek, staring at me in shock. "The last person to hit me was my mother.

Woman, you are playing with fire." "If you keep bleeding personal drama into the public market, you're going to burn your entire empire to the ground!

You actually think Lyla is some innocent victim?" A smug smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Heh. You really are jealous of Lyla. Know your place." I was done.

Let it all burn. He was beyond saving. I actually considered giving him a reality check to keep him away from Lyla, just so my motherinlaw's life's work wouldn't go up in smoke.

But looking at him now, it was completely pointless. With a CEO this incompetent, the conglomerate deserved to go bankrupt.

The Vaughn family's biggest rival syndicate didn't miss the golden opportunity. Piggybacking on the tabloid scandal, they bought out the trending topics on Twitter.

They exposed Vaughn's chaotic personal life to the masses and dug up the truth behind his precious token of affection.

It was a piece from a fastfashion brand deeply embroiled in African sweatshop controversies and a massive racism scandal. Cancel culture struck like lightning.

Vaughn's reputation was pulverized overnight. And the Vaughn conglomerate's stock price plummeted right along with it. I checked the skyrocketing numbers in my offshore accounts.

I didn't feel a ripple of panic. He could go bankrupt; I would keep making my millions. We were separate entities. But Chloe obviously didn't see it that way.

She assumed Vaughn and I were sinking on the same ship. The second the news of the stock crash hit, my phone rang.

She couldn't wait to gloat. "Wyatt and I are done, but Douglas treats me perfectly," she purred over the line. "He buys me designer bags and supports everything I do. Not like you.

You might have a billionaire husband, but he doesn't even look at you. Oh, wait." "I'm sorry. I forgot.

Your billionaire husband is about to be broke." Chapter 6 I stayed silent and hung up the phone. Sometimes, watching an idiot put on a onewoman show is just exhausting.

That was Douglas. He burned through cash like wildfire, especially when it came to young girls.

His university salary and pension weren't bad, but they couldn't survive that kind of burn rate.

In my past life, my mother worked multiple minimumwage shifts just to keep them afloat. It was grueling.

I tried to talk her out of it, begging her to leave Douglas, but she insisted that finding a companion who "truly cared" at her age was too hard.

When I realized she wasn't going to listen, I tried to pick up the slack. I quit my comfortable job as a collegiate gymnastics coach to chase higherpaying gigs.

From that day on, I became the one working three jobs until I dropped. But the breaking point wasn't the physical exhaustion. It was her bottomless greed.

She never once cared about my wellbeing; she only ever complained that my wire transfers weren't large enough. Slowly, the truth hit me.

My mother was hopelessly brainwashed by her own desperate need for romance. She had zero problem working me like a rented mule just to fund that old creep's lifestyle. And now?

Chloe was notoriously lazy. Expecting her to get a real job was a complete joke. My mother was going to have to shoulder that financial burden entirely on her own.

With her fragile health, how long could she survive being bled dry by the two of them? Sure enough, a few days later, my phone rang.

It was my mother, sobbing hysterically and painting a pathetic picture of her current struggles. "I believe every word you're saying.

But what does any of that have to do with me?" I said coolly, tapping the red button to end the call. Playing the savior only gets you crucified.

Drop the hero complex and let people rot in the graves they dug for themselves. The reality show was halfway through the season.

Every contestant was bleeding themselves dry on that stage to secure a spot in the finale. Everyone except Lyla.

If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed someone could completely butcher a highstakes track that demanded advanced acrobatics and flawless vocal control, especially this late in the competition.

Her movements were completely uncoordinated, her high notes cracked violently, and she finished with this obnoxiously fake, breathless pose to milk sympathy.

I had endured the entire song.

I finally slammed my hand down on the red buzzer. "Your desecration of this stage is making my eyes bleed!" Dead silence fell over the entire studio. "If you had stepped foot in a single gymnastics class, you wouldn't have turned an acrobatic routine into this absolute trainwreck!" I didn't hold back, my voice cutting through the quiet. "Do you have any respect for the audience?

For the sport?" "This is a complete mockery!" Lyla didn't flinch. She offered a sickeningly sweet smile. "You're right, Fallon.

I'm really not that great at this." "But judging by your tone, you seem to be an expert.

Would you mind giving us a personal demonstration?" She held up the rhythmic ribbon she used for her routine. I knew exactly what she was doing.

She was openly challenging me on national television. She was smiling so brightly, looking the picture of pure elegance. That was fine.

I was about to wipe that smug look right off her face. I stepped down from the judge's panel and snatched the ribbon from her hand.

I didn't even take off my fourinch redsoled heels.

I executed a flawless sequence of back handsprings straight into a midair split across the polished stage, landing perfectly without a single hair out of place. "It's been a while.

I'm a little rusty." I smiled smoothly, handing the ribbon back to her. She stared at me, paralyzed