In her previous life, Evelyn Thorne was the definition of a "cliché villainess." Obsessed with a man who loathed her, she threw away her dignity, her family's fortune, and eventually, her life. Everyone cheered when she died in cold blood.But fate has a wicked sense of humor.Evelyn wakes up on her 17th birthday, the year it all began at Saint Mary’s Elite Academy. This time, she isn't chasing love. She's chasing power. She will no longer be the stepping stone for the "innocent" female lead. With every cold smile and calculated move, Evelyn begins to dismantle the lives of those who trampled on her."If you wanted a monster, I'll show you a queen who rules the darkness."

She married him for survival.He married her for revenge.To save her family from ruin, Evelyn Carter agrees to a contract marriage with Lucas Blackwood—a powerful, cold-hearted man who despises her for a past she doesn’t fully understand. In their marriage, there is no love, no warmth, and no mercy. Only rules.To the world, they are the perfect couple.Behind closed doors, they are strangers bound by resentment.Lucas makes it clear from the beginning: this marriage will never include affection. Evelyn is nothing more than a name on his contract, a wife by title only. Yet as days turn into nights, the line between hatred and desire begins to blur.Secrets surface. Old wounds reopen. And the truth behind Lucas’s hatred threatens to shatter everything Evelyn believes about herself—and about the man she married.In a marriage built on lies and bitterness, can love survive?Or will hatred destroy them before love ever has a chance to exist?