The mahogany door splintered under Marcus's boot. I watched from inside my coffin as wood fragments scattered across the marble floor of what used to be my family's estate. Through the narrow gap I'd left myself to breathe, I could see him—tall, sharp-jawed Marcus Chen, wearing that charcoal suit I'd always loved. Vanessa clung to his arm, her manicured nails digging into his expensive fabric like she owned him. She did, really. She'd owned him for the past three years, even while he was engaged to me. "Elena!" Marcus's voice boomed through the entrance hall. "Enough of this drama. I know you're here." My butler, Thomas—loyal Thomas who'd raised me since I was six—stepped forward. His weathered face was a mask of genuine grief. We'd rehearsed this moment for days, but the tears streaming down his cheeks weren't part of the script. Those were real. "Mr. Chen," Thomas's voice cracked. "Miss Elena passed away seven days ago." "Bullshit." Marcus strode past him, Vanessa trailing behind like a shadow. "This is another one of her manipulative games. Where is she hiding?" I pressed my hand against my mouth to keep from laughing. Or screaming. I wasn't sure which anymore. Seven days ago, I had died. Just not the way Thomas was about to describe. The old Elena Sullivan—the one who'd endured ninety-nine tests of Marcus's so-called love—had died at that border crossing when he'd driven away and left me stranded. When those men had grabbed me. When they'd thrown me into that van. What came back was something else entirely. "Sir, please." Thomas gestured toward my coffin, surrounded by white lilies and flickering candles. "She's gone. The funeral is tomorrow." Marcus laughed. Actually laughed. The sound echoed off the vaulted ceiling, bouncing around the chandelier my grandmother had imported from Prague. "Open it," he demanded. "Mr. Chen, I cannot—" "Open. The. Coffin." Marcus's hand moved to his phone. "Or I'll call the police and report a fraud. Elena's pulling an insurance scam, isn't she? Faking her death to get out of our engagement?" Our engagement. As if it had ever been real. Vanessa touched his shoulder, her voice honey-sweet. "Marcus, maybe we should just go. If she wants to play dead, let her. We can finally be together without all this drama." Something dark flickered across Marcus's face. For a moment, I almost believed he cared. Almost. "No," he said firmly. "This is test number one hundred. If Elena truly loves me, she'll stop this charade right now." Test number one hundred. My fingernails dug into my palms so hard I felt skin break. Even now—even standing in front of what he thought was my corpse—he was still testing me. Test number one had been simple: cancel my birthday dinner to comfort Vanessa through a "crisis" that turned out to be a broken nail. Test number thirty-seven: choose between my mother's funeral and his company party. Test sixty-two: let him sleep with Vanessa "just once" to "get her out of his system." I'd passed them all. Every single degrading, soul-crushing test. Test ninety-nine had been the last. "Drive yourself to the border crossing," he'd texted me at 2 AM. "If you can make it there by dawn without calling me for help, I'll know you're strong enough to be my wife." I'd made it. Barely. My car had broken down five miles out, and I'd walked the rest of the way in heels, my phone dead, through territory even the police didn't patrol after dark. He never showed up. But others did. Thomas's hands trembled as he approached my coffin. We'd planned this, but I could see the moral struggle in his eyes. He'd worked for the Sullivans for forty years. Deception wasn't in his nature. "Are you certain, Mr. Chen?" Thomas asked one final time. "Open it." The coffin lid creaked as Thomas lifted it. I kept my eyes closed, my body perfectly still. I'd practiced this for hours, slowing my breathing to almost nothing, keeping my face slack and pale. The makeup artist I'd hired had done exceptional work—I looked exactly like a corpse that had been preserved for viewing. I heard Vanessa gasp. "Oh my God," she whispered. "Marcus, she's really—" "It's makeup," Marcus interrupted, but his voice had lost some of its certainty. "Elena, stop this. Get up." I didn't move. Footsteps approached. I felt him lean over the coffin, felt his breath on my face. He smelled like the cologne I'd given him last Christmas, mixed with Vanessa's sickly-sweet perfume. "Elena." His hand touched my cheek. My cold, cold cheek—I'd held ice packs against my face for thirty minutes before they'd arrived. "This isn't funny anymore." Through my barely-parted lashes, I could see his expression shifting. Doubt creeping in. Fear. Good. "Mr. Chen," Thomas said quietly, "perhaps you should see this." He handed Marcus a folder. Inside were hospital records, police reports, photographs. All meticulously forged, but Marcus didn't know that. He didn't know that the Sullivan family had enough money to make any story believable. The police report detailed how I'd been found at the border crossing, how I'd been kidnapped, sold to an underground fighting ring. How they'd found my body in a warehouse, every bone broken, barely clinging to life. How I'd died three days later in a hospital bed, whispering Marcus's name. That last part was Thomas's addition. The old romantic. I watched Marcus's face drain of color as he read. Watched his hands start to shake. "No," he whispered. "No, this is—Elena wouldn't—" "She called for you," Thomas said, and now his voice was sharp, accusing. "Every day in that hospital bed. Even after what you'd done. Even after you'd left her there. She called your name." Marcus stumbled backward, the folder falling from his hands. Papers scattered across the floor like white birds with broken wings. "This is fake," he said, but he sounded like he was trying to convince himself. "She's testing me. This is her test." I almost smiled at that. Almost. Vanessa picked up one of the photographs—a picture of someone who looked exactly like me, bruised and broken in a hospital bed. The actress had cost me fifty thousand dollars, but she'd been worth every penny. "Marcus," Vanessa's voice was small now, frightened. "I think she's really dead." "No." Marcus grabbed my hand, the one draped artistically over the coffin's edge. "Elena, please. If you can hear me—" His voice cracked. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm so sorry. Just wake up. Please just wake up."