Love's Deadly Second Chance

The salt spray felt the same on my skin, a cold, familiar mist. I stood on the deck of my private yacht, the Serenity, watching the turquoise water churn below. This was where I died. Not in a hospital bed, not in a car crash, but right here, in the middle of the ocean, because of the two people I thought I loved most – my fiancée, Chloe, and her precious artist, Alex. The memory wasn' t a dream; it was a scar. Pirates swarmed the deck, their jeering laughter echoing alongside Chloe' s cool, distant voice, telling them to hurry up. She had a dinner reservation. Alex, her childhood friend, had already been taken to safety while I was left to bleed out. After I was gone, she poisoned me again, finding a way to get my fortune, dismembering my body to hide the evidence of her betrayal. But then, a shock. The universe, in its cruel way, gave me a second chance. I was reborn, sent back to the start of this very day, on this very yacht, with every memory of my end searing in my mind. "Liam, darling, are you even listening?" Chloe' s voice cut through my thoughts, a beautiful, hollow sound I once adored. She glided across the deck, pouting about the captain' s refusal to wait for Alex and his "masterpiece." Alex, that talentless hack spray-painting rocks, whose "art" I'd funded for years to make her happy. The same "art" that delayed our departure last time, costing me my life when the pirates attacked. That naive, lovestruck fool of the past was gone. Now, I knew her soul, and his. My purpose was clear, simpler than mere survival. I was here to collect a debt. I looked at Chloe, my face a calm, placid mask. "Whatever you want, Chloe." Her triumphant smile was sickening. She thought she' d won, as always. She had no idea the game had just begun, and this time, I was setting the rules. Suddenly, a siren blared, sharp and urgent. A crew member, Tom, ran onto the deck, his face pale. "Sir! Pirates! Three speedboats, approaching fast from the south!" It was happening again. The exact same moment, the exact same threat. And for the first time, I felt a terrible, exhilarating certainty. They had no idea what was coming.