Chapter 1

Late at night, I sat alone in our newly finished wedding suite, facing the antique Western mirror I'd won at auction for a small fortune, trying on the diamond crown I was meant to wear for the wedding tomorrow.

The woman in the mirror was lovely, her eyes sweet with the joy of a bride about to walk down the aisle.

Victor had booked out an entire private island for this wedding.

Everyone said I was the happiest woman in our circle.

My parents had died young, leaving me a fortune worth billions. Not only had I held the family business together, I'd also found a man who loved me down to the bone.

Just as I was lost in that happiness, the surface of the antique mirror suddenly rippled like water.

My once-clear reflection began to twist and blur.

Then a woman appeared in the glass — skeletal, her hair gone gray, wearing a psychiatric hospital's restraint jacket.

She was strapped to a rusted iron bed, her eyes hollow and sunken, her cheeks covered in festering sores.

And that face was my own.