Rewind to Eighteen: From the Assembly Line to the Forbes List Chapter 1

Transported back to age eighteen, I was forced to drop out of school and ended up tightening screws in a factory.In the middle of the noisy factory floor, the owner’s son stood with a cigarette dangling from his lips. He looked around with a reckless, arrogant smirk.

"I'm starting my own tech company," he announced. "Who’s crazy enough to come with me?"

Dead silence.

Then, one hand went up. Mine.

My coworkers said my brain was fried. My cousin laughed at my delusions. My parents screamed that I just needed to shut up and keep screwing bolts for minimum wage.

I just smiled. They didn’t know anything.

Twenty years later, that arrogant guy would be sitting at the top of the Forbes billionaire list.

* * *

I was eighteen again, and I had just been handed my expulsion papers.

In our cramped living room, my father’s roaring voice was deafening.

"Stealing from other students! You’ve completely dragged our family name through the mud!"

My mother chimed in, equally furious. "You couldn't just go to school and be normal? Look at your cousin Emily. Thank God she put in a good word for you, or you’d be sitting in a jail cell right now!"

The memories of my past life rushed back.

I had been framed for theft by a classmate. The teachers didn't care about the truth; they pinned it on me and dragged me to the principal's office.

The school was having a crackdown on stealing, and the principal wanted to make an example out of me. He threatened to call the cops.

That was when my cousin, Emily Carter, stepped in with tears in her eyes, begging for mercy on my behalf.

In the end, the principal let it go—on the condition that I voluntarily withdraw from the school.

Back then, I treated Emily like my savior. It wasn't until years later, when I was working a dead-end retail job and ran into an old classmate, that I found out the truth: the entire setup was orchestrated by Emily from the start.

Seeing me space out, my dad raised his hand.

I didn't dodge. I took the heavy slap straight across the face.

My whole body ached. This wasn't the first time they had hit me today.

"Pack your bags and get out tomorrow morning!" my dad yelled. "Whether you live or die out there is your own damn problem!"

I nodded, silently turning and walking back to my "room."

It was barely a room—just a tiny, partitioned closet next to the kitchen. The light was dim. I had zero privacy.

Right on the other side of the thin wall was my brother Kyle’s room.

He had a massive bed and, a true luxury for a working-class family in the late 90s, a brand-new desktop computer.

A birthday gift from our parents.

Sitting on my cot, the reality of my rebirth finally washed over me.

In my past life, I always thought that if I could just go back in time, I’d fight tooth and nail to prove my innocence and stay in high school.

But the damage was already done. Right now, I had no money, no power, and no way to fight back against awful people.

But that was fine. School wasn't the only way out.

Early the next morning, I left "home."

I had one duffel bag and twenty bucks I had scraped together.

I hopped on a Greyhound bus heading straight for the industrial side of the city.

In my previous life, after I was expelled, I was weak and defeated. My parents beat me and berated me daily until they got sick of looking at me and found me a job.

Emily’s mother, my Aunt Susan, worked as an accountant at a local manufacturing plant. She dragged me in to be a factory girl, screwing bolts on the assembly line all day with room and board included.

That soul-crushing, repetitive, dirt-cheap labor stole four years of my youth.

This time, I didn't wait for her introduction. I went straight to the factory myself.

Following behind the floor manager, I pulled on a pair of work gloves, grabbed my tools, and walked onto the familiar, deafening assembly floor.

Because in this life, I had a very specific target.

"Damn it, who the hell stepped on me?!"

The low, annoyed growl made me jump. I quickly pulled my foot back.

I had left a dusty boot print right on top of a perfectly shined leather shoe.

I followed the shoe up to the face, and my breath hitched.

The young man had frosted blonde tips, a dragon tattoo winding down his forearm, and a furious scowl on his face. He looked like a thug.

But I wasn't scared.

I had seen him in financial magazines, wearing tailored suits, his eyes sharp and his smile warm.

The contrast with the guy standing in front of me was jarring.

"Boss," the manager said, turning to me nervously. "She's new... apologize, now!"

I looked right into his eyes. "Sorry."

He stared back.

After a few seconds of dead silence, he asked, "You aren't scared of me?"

I shook my head.

"Interesting." Caleb Vance ran his tongue over his teeth. "Little factory girl, you'd do well to stay out of my way."

He turned on his heel to leave.

"I'm not a factory girl," I called out to his arrogant back. "My name is Chloe."