REBORN My Second Life I Became The Villianess (Nyxara) novel Chapter 69

They didn't see an outsider, they saw their equal. They saw a queen.

I gently stepped out from under Dario’s arm, walking slowly toward the middle of the room. I stopped, closing my eyes for a fraction of a second and letting out a deep, steadying breath.

When I opened my eyes again, I looked around at the assembled faces of killers, bosses, and rulers.

"I have something to tell you all," I began, my voice clear and steady. "I am the CEO of Cipher Core."

Silence crashed over the room. For a few long seconds, nobody moved. Then, Dario blinked, his dark brows furrowing deeply as he stared at me. "What?" he asked.

I let out a sigh, running a hand through my hair. "I know. I'm about to ask you something, and it's going to sound completely insane, but please... just humor me for a moment."

Grandfather shifted slightly in his chair, tapping his cane once against the floor to signal his attention. "Go ahead and ask, child. Nothing you say could surprise us after tonight." he said.

I looked directly at Grandfather, then let my gaze sweep over Elena, Pedro, and finally Dario.

"Do you believe in second chances?" I asked quietly, the words hanging heavy in the air. "Do you believe in... rebirth?"

The moment the question left my lips, the entire room went dead. Dario stopped breathing. He crossed the distance between us in a single stride, his hands shooting out to grab my face, his fingers trembling as he held me tightly. His eyes widened, searching my expression with a terrifying, desperate intensity.

"You've been reborn too?" he whispered, his voice cracking on the words.

I stared right back at him, letting the heavy, impossible truth settle between us.

I stared straight up into his eyes, the breath catching in my throat as the sheer weight of the realization crashed down around us.

"You," I whispered, the word carrying a lifetime of ghosts, pain, and unfinished business.

He let out a ragged, disbelieving breath, his fingers tightening slightly against my cheeks as if afraid I would vanish into thin air if he let go. "Yes," he murmured, his voice thick with emotion. "Me."

For a long moment, the rest of the room faded away. The assembled bosses, the family members, the shocking revelations of my true parentage, everything dissolved into the background as the two of us stood anchored in the center of the room, bridging the impossible gap between two lifetimes.

"What happened?" I asked, my voice barely louder than a breath, needing to hear the words aloud to confirm I wasn't losing my mind. "How did it end for you?"

His jaw tightened, a dark shadow crossing his face as he recalled the final hours of his past life. He didn't look away from my eyes.

"I died in a car crash Nysa orchestrated ," he answered, his tone flat and cold, laced with old fury. "The last life I married her, but I never really loved her, She killed them, all oof them. Every single one of my family members one by one and saved me for last. Before she pushed my car off the cliff, she told ne she killed you too" he said.

A cold, bitter sound escaped my lips, and I shook my head slowly. "She killed me too. On an empty road outside the city. She cornered me, plunged a knife straight into my chest, and told me to my face how much she hated me." I said.

I swallowed hard, the memory of that brutal, lonely death burning behind my eyes. "She stole Cipher Core from me in the last life, right after she found out I was the one who built it from the ground up. She made sure I was isolated, keeping me away from you and everyone else, terrified of what I could achieve."

The pieces finally clicked together, illuminating the dark corners of why everything had felt so different from the moment we crossed paths in this timeline.

"So that's why," I continued, looking into his eyes. "That's why this life went so different from the last life. You changed your targets. You came after me instead of her, didn't you?" I asked.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify