Chapter 1

The jagged glass of the passenger window bit into Amelia Hayes' s cheek.

"Please, just take the car," she choked out, hands trembling as she fumbled for her purse.

The man with the gun laughed, a harsh, ugly sound. "And you, pretty lady?"

Fear, cold and absolute, seized her. Her fingers found her phone, speed-dialing Ethan.

The line connected. "Ethan, help me-"

"Amelia, for God's sake, I'm in a meeting," Ethan Caldwell, her husband of seven miserable years, snapped. "Can't this wait?"

"No, Ethan, please, I'm being-"

A sharp blow to her head. The phone skittered away.

Darkness.

Then, a blinding light, a searing pain, and a voice. Ethan's voice.

"-utterly useless, Amelia. Can't you do anything right?"

Amelia' s eyes flew open.

Not to the dark, blood-slicked interior of her car, but to the opulent, suffocating familiarity of their master bedroom.

Sunlight streamed through the silk curtains. Years earlier. This was years earlier.

She was alive. Reborn.

The calendar on the bedside table read: October 17th.

Three months after their wedding. Three months into the hell she had just escaped.

A wave of nausea, thick with the phantom smell of blood and gunpowder, washed over her.

She had been given a second chance.

Ethan stood by the window, phone pressed to his ear, his back to her.

"Yes, Jessica, tonight sounds perfect," he murmured, his voice softening, a tone Amelia had craved and never received. "I'll handle Amelia. She's just being dramatic, as usual."

Jessica Thorne. His college girlfriend. The woman he truly loved. The woman who had been a shadow over their entire marriage in her past life.

Amelia felt the old, familiar ache in her chest, quickly overpowered by a new, cold fury.

Not this time.

"Ethan," Amelia said, her voice surprisingly steady, raw from disuse in this timeline but firm.

He turned, annoyance clear on his handsome face. "What now, Amelia? Can't you see I'm on a call?"

"We need to talk," she stated, pushing herself up. The memories of her death, his indifference, were too vivid, too horrifying.

"Later," he dismissed, turning back to the window.

"No. Now," Amelia insisted, her voice gaining strength. "I want a divorce."

Ethan laughed, a short, derisive sound. He ended his call.

"A divorce? Don't be ridiculous, Amelia. What is this, another one of your little games to get my attention?"

He strode towards her, his expression a mixture of contempt and amusement.

"You wouldn't dare. Grandmother Eleanor would have your head. And besides," he leaned in, his voice a cruel whisper, "where would you go?"

His arrogance, his blindness, it was all the same. But she was different now.

"I dare," she said, meeting his gaze without flinching. "This isn't a game, Ethan. This is over."

Amelia swung her legs out of bed, ignoring the tremor in her limbs.

She walked to her dresser, pulled out her phone – this life' s phone – and found the number she needed.

"Yes, I need to schedule an urgent consultation with Mr. Davies," she said into the phone, her voice clear and professional. "It's regarding a divorce settlement. Amelia Hayes. Yes, Caldwell now, unfortunately."

Ethan watched her, his amusement fading, replaced by a flicker of disbelief.

She hung up. "He can see me this afternoon."

For seven years in her previous life, Amelia had loved Ethan Caldwell with a desperate, unyielding devotion.

She had endured his coldness, his blatant affairs, his emotional abuse, all in the pathetic hope that one day he would see her, truly see her.

She had been the quiet, artistic soul Eleanor Caldwell, his formidable grandmother, had hoped would ground him.

Eleanor, on her deathbed, had orchestrated their marriage, tying Ethan' s access to the family trusts to their union.

Amelia remembered Eleanor' s frail hand in hers, her whispered words: "He needs you, child. You have a strength he doesn't see."

Amelia had believed her. She had tried. God, how she had tried.

The name Jessica Thorne was a brand on Amelia' s soul.

Jessica had been there from the beginning, a constant, smiling viper.

Ethan had never hidden his infatuation, parading Jessica at events Amelia was expected to host, leaving Amelia to manage the whispers and the pitying looks.

In her past life, Amelia had tried to barter for Ethan's time, pleading with him not to see Jessica on anniversaries, on her birthday.

Each concession from him had felt like a victory, each broken promise a fresh wound.

She remembered screaming matches, tearful accusations, public meltdowns that only solidified Ethan's narrative of her as unstable, demanding.

Ethan still loved Jessica.

Amelia had seen it in the way his eyes followed Jessica across a room, the way his voice softened when he spoke her name, even now, in this reborn moment.

The arranged marriage, a cage for both of them, had been Eleanor Caldwell' s dying wish.

Eleanor, a respected philanthropist, saw Amelia' s quiet nature and artistic talents as a necessary counterbalance to Ethan' s volatile temperament.

Ethan, however, only saw Amelia as an obstacle, a jailer.

He had never forgiven his grandmother, or Amelia, for the life he felt was stolen from him.

In her previous life, desperate for any scrap of Ethan's attention, Amelia had become a caricature.

She' d thrown lavish parties he rarely attended, bought clothes she hated but thought he' d admire, even tried to befriend his dismissive social circle.

Her art, her true passion, had withered.

She' d become reactive, her emotions a pendulum swinging with Ethan's moods.

If he was cold, she was desolate. If he showed a flicker of kindness – usually when he wanted something – she would cling to it, a starving woman offered a crumb.

The arguments with Jessica had been legendary, always instigated by Jessica' s subtle digs and Ethan' s immediate defense of his "true love." Amelia always looked like the shrew.

A profound, chilling clarity settled over Amelia.

That love, that all-consuming, self-destructive love she' d felt for Ethan, was dead.

It had died with her in that car, listening to his indifference.

What remained was a hollow echo, a scar tissue of memory.

She would not waste this second chance pining for a man who was incapable of loving her, a man who had, in essence, let her die.

"It was never love, was it?" she murmured, more to herself than to Ethan, who was now staring at her with a strange, unreadable expression. "It was an obsession. And I was a fool."

The doorbell chimed.

Ethan didn't move. He was still processing her words, her calm.

Amelia walked past him, her head held high.

A distinguished man in a crisp suit stood in the doorway. "Mrs. Caldwell? I'm Arthur Davies."

"Mr. Davies, please come in," Amelia said, stepping aside.

She led him to the formal living room, acutely aware of Ethan following, his presence a heavy weight.

Mr. Davies laid out the documents on the polished mahogany table. "Standard separation agreement. Division of assets, confidentiality clauses..."

Amelia picked up the pen. Her hand was steady.

Ethan finally spoke, his voice laced with disbelief and a dawning, unfamiliar anger.

"You're actually doing this?"

He snatched one of the papers, his eyes scanning it furiously.

"You think you can just walk away?" he scoffed, but the sound lacked its usual conviction.

He signed his name with a vicious slash of the pen.

"Fine. Go. But don't come crying back to me when you realize what a mistake you've made, Amelia. You will regret this."

His condescending tone, the familiar dismissal – it bounced off her.

Amelia simply smiled, a small, genuine smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.

"Oh, Ethan," she said softly. "The only thing I regret is not doing this seven years ago."

In her mind, she was already packing. Not just clothes, but her entire life.

She would leave. Disappear.

He would not find her. This time, she would be free.

She signed her name, Amelia Hayes, reclaiming the identity she had lost.