My Husband Faked His Death,So My Mother-in-Law Made Me the Billionaire Heiress

My husband fell overboard and drowned. They never recovered his body.

My mother-in-law and I were devastated.

While sorting through his belongings, I discovered a journal he'd left behind.

Page after page revealed the truth: my mother-in-law had always looked down on me, had been sabotaging me behind my back for years. And my husbandmy devoted, loving husbandhad been quietly shielding me from it all.

Before I could confront her, she came for me first.

She called me a viper. A snake with a poisoned heart. She accused me of killing her son, of cheating on him while he was alive. Her screams brought the neighbors running.

We tore into each other. The whole city heard about it.

In the end, she hired men to break my arms and legs. They threw me out like garbage.

She died shortly aftersome sudden illness, they said. Collapsed in the hospital.

And then.

Then.

My husband reappeared.

He strolled back into the world with his mistress on his arm, collected his mother's vast fortune, and drove past me in a luxury car while I begged for scraps on the street.

The look on his facethat smug, contemptuous sneerI'll never forget it.

"The whole point of faking my death," he said, leaning out the window like he was discussing the weather, "was to make you and my adoptive mother destroy each other. I needed you both ruined. It was the only way to get my hands on her money fast enough."

"Everything in that journal? Lies. Every word. But only a fool like you would fall for it."

"Oh, and the slow-acting poison in her food?" He smiled. "That was me. But everyone will assume it was youthe bitter, resentful daughter-in-law. No one will ever suspect her precious son."

I listened.

I understood.

And then I diedchoking on rage and grief and the bitter taste of betrayal.

When I opened my eyes, I was back.

The night before Theo Mason's "fishing trip."

1.

8:17 PM.

Theo leaned close, his voice soft with practiced concern. "Myra Simmons, you and Mom have been giving each other the cold shoulder for days now. I know she went too far, but... she's still your elder."

He pressed a shopping bag into my hands. "I bought some high-end bird's nest porridge. Just tell her you picked it up, make her a bowl before bed. Smooth things over a little, yeah?"

I looked at him.

Really looked at him.

The concerned furrow of his brow. The gentle, coaxing tone. The way his thumb brushed my knuckles like I was something precious.

I swallowed the fury clawing up my throat and nodded, letting my lip tremble just slightly. Playing the wounded wife. The role I'd perfected without ever knowing it was a role.

In my first life, my relationship with Madge Mason had never been good, but it hadn't been terrible either. Just... cold. Punctuated by silences and small slights I could never quite trace.

I'd spent years feeling vaguely wronged, wondering why nothing I did was ever enough for her. Why she always seemed to be waiting for me to fail.

It wasn't until I was dying in the gutter that I understood.

Theo had been stoking that fire the entire time.

On the surface: the devoted husband, the filial son. Beneath it: a puppet master pulling strings I couldn't even see.

That journal he'd "accidentally" left behind? The final match tossed onto years of carefully laid kindling.

Looking back now, I could see exactly how stupid I'd been. How pitifully easy to manipulate.

Theo watched my performancethe quivering chin, the reluctant acceptanceand sighed like a man carrying the weight of the world.

"Tell you what," he said, running a hand through his hair. "After things calm down, I'll talk to Mom about us getting our own place. Moving out. Would that help?"

He cupped my face. "It kills me to see you hurting like this."

Then he kissed my forehead. Soft. Tender.

The lips of a man who would watch me starve.

He slipped away to the guest roomto his motherand I heard the low murmur of voices through the wall. Poisoning her against me, no doubt. Another drop in the well.

Minutes later, he emerged with his fishing gear slung over one shoulder.

"Mom! Myra!" he called out. "I'm heading to the coast to fish. Might be back late, so don't wait up!"

He looked, for all the world, like a middle-aged husband escaping the tension at home. A man who just needed some air.

The door clicked shut behind him.

Madge shuffled out of the guest room, her face tight and unreadable.

I stared at her.

My chest ached with everything I couldn't say. Your son is a monster. He's been poisoning youliterally. He's going to fake his death tonight and let us tear each other apart.

How do you explain rebirth to someone who already thinks you're the enemy?

After all, the whole thing was so bizarre. If my mother-in-law didn't believe meif she thought I was deliberately slandering Theoher opinion of me would only sink lower.

I was still weighing how to break our cold war while simultaneously convincing her that Theo was plotting to kill us both when the next scene stopped me cold.

Madge strode into the kitchen and dumped the bird's nest porridge Theo had just bought straight into the trash.

Before I could process what I was seeing, she rushed to my side, her voice urgent. "Myra, please tell me you didn't drink that porridge that bastard brought home."

"If you did, we're going to the hospital right now to pump your stomach. He laced it with slow-acting poison."

"There are things I don't know how to explain to you"

She didn't finish. My eyes went wide, and the words tumbled out before I could stop them. "Mom... you were reborn too?"

Madge froze. She stared at me, disbelief written across her face, then her voice cracked with emotion. "Myra, does that mean you also"

"Thank God." Her eyes glistened. "Heaven finally opened its eyes and gave us a second chance."

We fell into each other's arms and wept.

A long time passed before our tears dried and our breathing steadied. I pulled back, wiping my face. "Mom, what do we do now? Should we follow Theo? Confront him and expose his fake death on the spot?"

Madge shook her head. Her jaw tightened, hatred sharpening every word. "If he wants to play dead, we'll let him stay dead."

Theo didn't come home that night.

Just after five in the morning, his secretary, Amy Baxter, showed up at the house looking frantic.

"Chairwoman," Amy said, worry creasing her brow, "Mr. Mason hasn't been answering his phone all night. There's an issue with that contract he was negotiatingthe client isn't happy. I couldn't reach him, so I had no choice but to come here."

She glanced toward the hallway. "Is he still asleep?"

Madge and I exchanged a veiled look.

Amy was Theo's secretary in title. In reality, she was his mistress.

In our previous life, after Theo faked his death, he'd hidden at her apartment the entire time. And when I discovered Theo's journalthat carefully planted web of liesit was Amy who had fabricated evidence of my supposed affair, presenting it to Madge and shattering what remained of our relationship.

She'd done everything in her power to help Theo get his hands on Madge's inheritance. All so the two of them could live out their days in luxury together.

Madge and I despised her.

But right now, we had to keep up the pretensestill feuding, still barely speaking.

Madge told her Theo had gone night fishing and never returned. Amy's face twisted into an expression of shock. "He's been gone all night? What if something happened to him?"

Right on cue, her phone rang. She answered, and the color drained from her face.

"This is bad." She turned to us, panic in her voice. "A friend of mine was walking along the shore last night and saw someone fall into the sea. She said... it looked like Mr. Mason."

I laughed inside. How predictable.

In our last life, Amy had used this exact lie to lead us around by the nose.

Now that Madge and I had been reborn, there was no way we'd fall for her act again.

We feigned shock and alarm, then hurried after her to the seaside pier.

A crowd had already gathered at the fishing spot. Theo's gear sat abandoned on the rocks, and a rat-faced man was loudly recounting how he'd witnessed someone plunge into the water the night before. Naturally, the commotion had drawn a swarm of onlookers eager for drama.

The rat-faced man, of course, was Amy's so-called friend.

In reality, this shifty-looking man was nothing more than an actor Amy had paid to put on a show.

The moment he spotted Amy approaching with Madge and me, his performance kicked into high gear. He turned to the gathering crowd, voice rising with practiced distress. "Why would I lie about something like this?"

"I was walking along the shore last nightI saw it with my own eyes! A man lost his footing and fell into the sea." His hands trembled convincingly. "I wanted to save him, I really did, but the waves were brutal. The moment he hit the water, the current dragged him under. There was nothing I could do!"

"Look" He fumbled for his phone, swiping to a photo and thrusting the screen toward the onlookers. "I even managed to snap a picture of him before it happened!"

The face in the photograph was unmistakably Theo's.

Amy let out a strangled gasp and lunged forward, snatching the phone from his hands. She stared at the screen, then whipped around to face Madge and me, her voice cracking with manufactured panic. "It's really himit's Mr. Mason! Something terrible has happened to him!"

Madge and I played our parts flawlessly, our faces crumpling with shock and grief.

By nightfall, news of Theo Mason's tragic drowning had spread across every social platform in the city.

And riding that same digital wave came something elsewhispers, then shouts, accusing me of cheating on my husband during our marriage.

Theo was making his move from the shadows.

I knew exactly where he was hiding: tucked away in Amy's apartment, waiting for us to take the bait. All Madge and I had to do was show up with witnesses, and we'd catch him red-handed.

But we didn't.

Over the following days, Amy threw herself into her role with nauseating dedication. She fussed over Madge constantlyAre you eating enough? You look so palewhile shooting me looks of barely concealed disgust. She made sure to mention the online rumors about my alleged affair, always within Madge's earshot, always with that infuriating air of innocent concern.

I found Theo's diary toothe one he'd planted for me to discover, pages dripping with fabricated heartbreak and carefully constructed lies. I read every word.

Then I smiled and tucked it away for safekeeping.

In front of Amy, Madge and I gave her exactly what she wanted to see: a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law at each other's throats. We argued. We snapped. We let the venom fly until Amy was utterly convinced we'd destroyed each other.

What Amy didn't know was that behind closed doors, Madge and I had already made a quiet trip to the Police Bureau.

Why?

To officially register Theo Mason as deceased.

In my previous life, after Theo's fake death, both Madge and I had been drowning in griefeasy targets for Amy's manipulation. It never occurred to either of us to file the paperwork that would legally erase him.

That oversight cost us everything.

When Madge suddenly fell ill from the slow-acting poison, when I was thrown out with shattered limbs and nothing to my nameTheo had waltzed back into existence and claimed her entire fortune without a single obstacle.

Not this time.

Now Theo Mason was officially dead. A ghost in the system.

And ghosts can't inherit anything.

The Police Bureau wasn't our only stop. Madge and I also visited the Notary Office.

All of it done in secret. All of it invisible to Amy's watchful eyes.

On the surface, our war continued to escalate. We even staged a few public screaming matches for good measure.

One month after Theo's "drowning," Madge and I delivered our masterpiece.

A spectacular, very public meltdown.

I was thrown out of the mansion in disgrace. Madge collapsed and was rushed to the hospital, reportedly devastated by her ungrateful daughter-in-law's betrayal.

The internet devoured every detail.

Meanwhile, in Amy's apartment, Theo lounged in his pajamas with Amy draped across his lap. He scrolled through the headlines about our falling out, a slow, satisfied grin spreading across his face.

"It's happening," he murmured, pulling her closer. "Myra and my dear adoptive mother have finally torn each other apart. Our plan is almost complete."

He nuzzled Amy's hair, still scrolling. "I know that old woman better than anyone. She puts on this gentle facade, but underneath? Steel. She built that empire from nothing through sheer force of will. A woman like that would never tolerate a daughter-in-law who cheated on her precious son."

His grin sharpened. "Keep the pressure on. Flood the networks with more rumors about Myra's affair. Throw in some stories about her badmouthing me and my mother after getting kicked out." He chuckled, dark and low. "The old bat will send someone to break every bone in Myra's body. And then..."

He didn't need to finish the sentence.

Amy smiled against his chest, already reaching for her phone.

Amy nodded, a cold smirk twisting her lips. "Better yet, we could just kill Myra outright. That way, your dear foster mother won't escape legal consequences either"

"No." Theo cut her off with a sharp shake of his head. "If my foster mother ends up in prison, when would I ever get my hands on her fortune?"

He began to pace, his voice dropping to a bitter mutter. "All these years, she's kept an iron grip on everything. Even though I grew up right beside her, she never fully trusted me. I don't even know exactly how much she's worth."

His eyes hardened. "So my foster mother has to die."

"Only when she's dead will I inherit everything."

A satisfied smile crept across his face. "Before I staged my death, I'd already been lacing her premium bird's nest congee with a slow-acting poison. She can't sleep without drinking a bowl every night."

"Right now, everyone thinks she's hospitalized because Myra upset her." He let out a low laugh. "But the truth is, she's been poisoned. It won't be long before she's gone for good."

"And even if the doctors discover the toxins?" He spread his hands. "They'll assume Myra did it out of spite. It'll never trace back to me."

Amy's eyes lit up with barely contained excitement. "Theo, you're brilliant! Once your plan succeeds, we can finally"

His phone buzzed, cutting her off.

Theo glanced at the screen, answered, and listened for barely three seconds before grabbing Amy and kissing her hard. "My contact at the hospital says she's fading fast!"

He was already pulling her toward the door. "We need to get there nowshe has to write that will before she goes!"

They arrived at the hospital within the hour.

A heavyset middle-aged doctor was waiting at the entrance. The moment he spotted them, he hurried over, his voice dropping to an urgent whisper. "You're finally here. Any later and you might've missed her entirely."

Theo's face broke into barely concealed delight. "She's really that far gone?"

Dr. Warren Holt nodded grimly. "She won't make it through the night. Severe poisoning. Multiple organ failure. She's conscious now, but that could change any moment"

Before the doctor could finish, Theo was already dragging Amy through the hospital doors, his mind racing ahead to the performance of a lifetime: the devoted son, devastated by grief.

As they rushed down the corridor toward the private wing, he fired off instructions.

"When we get to the room, follow my lead. Don't break character."

"And rub some ginger under your eyeswe need real tears. It won't look right otherwise."

"Whatever happens, we walk out of there with her assets. Understood?"

He pulled out a piece of fresh ginger he'd brought for exactly this purpose and began rubbing it beneath his eyes. Amy grimaced but followed suit.

By the time they reached the VIP ward, both of their eyes were red and streaming.

But when they rounded the corner to the private suite, they stopped dead.

The corridor outside the room was packed.

Every single one of the executives who managed the old woman's empire stood there, silent and still. And every single one of them was watching Theo and Amy approach.

Their expressions were... strange.

"Must be because they heard she's dying," Amy whispered, recovering first. "They rushed over to pay their respects."

She squeezed Theo's arm, her voice bright with anticipation. "Once you have that will in hand, you'll be their new boss."

Theo liked that reasoning. He arranged his features into a mask of grief and approached the eldest of the groupa steady-eyed man named Bruce Kane who'd been with the family for decades.

"Uncle Bruce." Theo's voice cracked artfully. "I came as soon as I heard."

He dabbed at his ginger-reddened eyes. "How is she? She was always so healthyI don't understand how this could happen so suddenly."

Neither Theo nor Amy noticed the way Bruce's gaze flickered over them.

Nor did they catch the looks exchanged among the other executivesthe barely concealed contempt, the quiet disgust rippling through the crowd.

Bruce's voice was flat, betraying nothing. "The chairwoman's been asking for you. You should go in."

Theo and Amy rushed to push open the door.

Their faces were masks of grief, tears streaming down their cheeks.

Amy's voice cracked with a sob. "Chairwoman, Mr. Mason is backhe's alive! Please, you have to hold on!"

Theo wailed as if his heart were being torn from his chest. "Mother, your son has failed you, I"

The words died in his throat.

He and Amy stood frozen in the doorway, stunned into silence.