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My 40th birthday party shimmered with the illusion of my perfect life: a tech mogul husband I'd bankrolled, two bright kids, and a brownstone nestled in Boston's elite Beacon Hill, proof of the American dream I'd painstakingly built. I had poured my entire inheritance and every family connection into Ethan, transforming him from a struggling nobody into a powerful industry darling. But the champagne he handed me, meant to toast four decades of life, instead delivered a searing, agonizing pain, the very taste of betrayal meant to end it. Through blurring eyes, I watched in horror as he stared dispassionately, his mistress Chloe smirking beside him, and heard my own children coldly echo their chilling words, condemning me as "embarrassing" as darkness consumed everything. My world dissolved not just into black, but into the hollow echo of a life stolen by the very hands I trusted most. How could the family I cherished, the man I sacrificed everything for, orchestrate such a calculated demise, reducing me to nothing but an obstacle in their path? The unbearable burn of the poison paled in comparison to the scorching agony of their heartless betrayal. Then, light, and the familiar scent of old books in my ancestral home. My great-uncle Finn offered me a choice: a quiet life, or the sacred, ancient power of an Oath Guardian. In my last life, I chose peace for Ethan; this time, reborn with a terrifying clarity, I chose power and vengeance, accepting the trials that would transform me into Liam, ready to exact a cold, precise retribution.