Chapter 2

After confirming she had completely let down her guard, I carefully lifted the covers and tiptoed out of the master bedroom.

Like a gecko, I lay flat at the railing of the second-floor staircase, holding my breath as I looked down.

I saw Linda walk skillfully to the first floor, pull out a key, and open the basement door.

Immediately after, three men and two women crawled out from inside like rats.

They were Linda’s husband, her brother, and Jason Lee — the one who strangled me in my past life.

The other two women were her mother-in-law and her high school daughter.

I covered my mouth, terrified of making even the slightest sound.

In my past life, Linda had told me with tears running down her face that she had a whole family to support.

I felt sorry for her and paid her double what other maids earned outside.

At the time, she even brought her whole family, carrying a basket of eggs to my door to kneel and thank me.

It turned out that “gratitude” meant scouting the place in advance so the whole family could take over my nest like cuckoo birds.

Now, these parasites were sprawled comfortably on the sofa watching TV.

Linda’s husband opened my double-door refrigerator and took out the lobster that had just been air-shipped yesterday, walking into the kitchen.

Her mother-in-law skillfully swiped several bottles of wine worth tens of thousands of dollars from the wine cabinet.

Linda’s brother Kyle shrank his neck, looking somewhat worried as he glanced at the second floor.

“Keep it down, you guys. Don’t wake up that woman.”

Linda gnawed on my imported apples while smugly waving her hand.

“What are you afraid of? I put extra sleeping pills in her milk. Even thunder couldn’t wake her up right now.”

I hid in the shadows, eyes wide, breaking out in a cold sweat.

No wonder in my past life, until the day I died, I never heard any sounds from downstairs at night.

Linda’s daughter Wendy asked while stuffing potato chips in her mouth:

“We eat like this every day. When the refrigerator runs out, won’t she get suspicious?”

Linda snorted, her tone full of contempt.

“That woman is just stupid with too much money.”

“Her parents divorced long ago and went abroad to live their own lives. No one cares whether she lives or dies.”

“If she really asks, I’ll just insist I don’t know anything. What can she do to me?”

Linda patted the leather sofa, laughing greedily.

“Besides, this villa is in a remote location, a full two hours’ drive from downtown. The neighbors around here haven’t even moved in yet.”

“This woman has mental problems and has to take medication. The villa has no surveillance cameras. She can’t find any evidence. What do we have to fear?”

“At worst, I’ll just say she’s hallucinating from her medication.”

Listening to them mock me so brazenly, I dug my fingers hard into the wooden railing.

Thinking back to my past life, there were several times I noticed things seemed to be missing from the villa.

But because of severe childhood trauma, I had a pathological aversion to being monitored, so I hadn’t installed surveillance cameras.

Plus, what went missing was just food and drinks, nothing valuable, so I didn’t think much of it.

More fatally, Linda knew I had trouble sleeping and was taking medication, so she would often fabricate fake timelines in front of me, making me think my memory was faulty.