Reborn as the Forgotten Heir

Chapter 1: Cold Rain, Colder Blood The rain in Riverdale didn’t just fall; it stung like broken glass against skin. Ethan Vance dragged his foot through the mud, each breath tearing through his lungs like swallowed razors. His soaked jacket weighed a ton, heavy with grime, street slush, and blood that wasn't entirely his own. Just two hours ago, he was standing in the grand ballroom of the Vance Manor, listening to his father—the legendary CEO Arthur Vance—announce the official heir to the multibillion-dollar Vance Group. Ethan had naively thought thirty years of sweat, silence, and loyal service meant something. He had brought three major mergers home. He had worked eighty-hour weeks in the dark while his half-brother, Julian, spent money on yachts and scandals. Instead, Arthur had raised Julian’s hand in front of the city’s elite, declaring him the sole legacy of the family. And when Ethan spoke up, asking why his dead mother's shares had been transferred without his consent, Arthur didn't even look him in the eye. "You were always an outsider, Ethan," Arthur had whispered coldly as security escorted him out into the alleyway. "A bastard child raised out of pity doesn't get a piece of my empire." Then came Julian’s hired thugs in the dark alley. A brief, vicious beatdown, a crack across Ethan's skull, and a thrown body into the trunk of a sedan. They thought dropping him on this deserted highway in the middle of a storm would be the end of it. Ethan collapsed against a rusted guardrail, his hands covered in wet dirt. His vision blurred, swimming with red and dark spots. His heart fluttered violently—a weak, dying rhythm. Is this how it ends? Ethan thought, a bitter laugh bubble bursting in his chest. Discarded like trash by the bloodline I built? He closed his eyes, expecting the final darkness to swallow him whole. "BEEP—BEEP—BEEP—" The harsh, rhythmic screech of an alarm clock shattered the silence. Ethan bolted upright, gasping for air as if rising from deep water. His hands immediately flew to his chest, expecting open wounds or broken ribs. Nothing. His skin was smooth. His lungs filled effortlessly. The scent of rain and wet asphalt was gone, replaced by the faint smell of cheap lavender detergent and old paper. He looked around in shock. He was sitting on a narrow single bed in a cramped, sunlit bedroom. Cheap posters hung on the cracked plaster walls. On the wooden desk across from him sat an outdated laptop and a stack of dog-eared business textbooks. This wasn't the alley. This wasn't Riverdale Hospital. This was his old university dorm room from five years ago. Ethan scrambled out of bed, his legs tangling in the thin blanket, and rushed to the small mirror hanging on the bathroom door. Reflected back at him was a twenty-two-year-old face. No scars across his temple. No sunken, exhausted eyes from half a decade of corporate warfare. He looked young, lean, and intensely alive. He grabbed his phone off the nightstand, his trembling thumb pressing the screen. October 14, 2021. A cold tremor ran down his spine, followed immediately by a surge of heat that made his blood boil. It was five years in the past. This was the exact day Arthur Vance first summoned him to the Vance Manor to "offer" him an entry-level position as an uncredited analyst—the trap that had pulled Ethan into five years of unpaid labor and ultimate betrayal. A slow, dark smile carved its way across Ethan’s face. "Five years..." Ethan murmured, his voice dropping an octave, heavy with a cold authority he hadn't possessed back then. "You gave me five years of hell, Arthur. Now I have five years of the future." He remembered everything. Every market crash before it happened. Every secret off-shore account the Vance family hid to evade taxes. Every high-stakes acquisition, every corporate spy, and every betrayal Julian would commit in his desperate bid for power. They thought he was a helpless bastard with nothing to his name. They didn't know he had brought five years of cutthroat corporate survival back from the grave with him. His phone began to vibrate in his palm. The caller ID displayed a name that used to make Ethan’s heart leap with a desperate desire for approval: Arthur Vance. Ethan let it ring. One second. Five seconds. Ten seconds. In his past life, he would have picked up on the first ring, stammering with eagerness to please his distant father. Now, he casually walked over to his small desk, poured a glass of water, and took a slow sip before sliding the screen to answer. "You're late answering, Ethan," Arthur's deep, commanding voice boomed through the speaker, carrying the tone of a man accustomed to being obeyed without question. "I don't like waiting." "I was busy," Ethan replied softly, his voice utterly devoid of warmth or nervousness. There was a brief beat of silence on the other end. Arthur clearly wasn't used to Ethan's calm indifference. "Listen closely," Arthur continued, clearing his throat with irritation. "I need you at the Grand Hotel downtown by three o'clock. The Vance Group is hosting a private dinner with the Carter family. Julian needs an assistant to handle his briefing materials for the tech acquisition deal. Make sure you dress properly. Don't embarrass the family." In his past life, Ethan had worked thirty-six hours straight organizing those exact briefing materials, only for Julian to present them as his own work and take full credit for a forty-million-dollar deal. "I won't be coming," Ethan said smoothly. "What did you say?" Arthur's tone instantly turned sharp as a blade. "Ethan, this is an opportunity I am giving you out of the goodness of my heart. If you want a place in this family—" "I don't," Ethan cut him off, his tone completely flat. "Excuse me?" "I said no," Ethan repeated, leaning back against his desk and looking out the window at the morning skyline. "Julian can do his own homework. Or fail. It makes no difference to me." "You ungrateful little—" Ethan hung up the phone mid-sentence and immediately blocked the number. He tossed the phone onto the bed and took a deep breath. Cutting ties with the Vance family on day one was just the prelude. Refusing to be their pawn wasn't enough; he was going to dismantle their empire brick by brick. He knew something Arthur Vance wouldn't find out for another two weeks: the "tech acquisition deal" Arthur was so eager to secure with the Carter family was an absolute trap. The target company, Aether Systems, possessed inflated financial reports and was sitting on a massive, hidden intellectual property lawsuit that would wipe out sixty percent of its valuation overnight. In his previous life, Ethan had discovered the flaw at the last second and saved the Vance Group from ruin, making Julian look like a genius in the process. This time? Ethan was going to step aside and let Julian walk straight off the cliff. Ethan walked over to his laptop, opened a fresh browser, and logged into his personal brokerage account. He had a modest saving of eight thousand dollars—money he had earned doing late-night freelance coding during his college years. He knew that at precisely 10:00 AM today, a small, overlooked biotech startup called BioGenix would release an unexpected clinical trial report. By 2:00 PM, its stock price would jump by twelve hundred percent before settling. Ethan didn't hesitate. He transferred every single cent of his eight thousand dollars into BioGenix calls. He closed the laptop lid with a soft click and adjusted his collar in the mirror. His eyes were sharp, calculated, and lethal. "Let the game begin, Arthur," Ethan whispered to the empty room. "This time, I'm taking everything."