Chapter 1

In my last life, I was Ethan Thorne, son of Marcus Thorne, the casino king.

I saved Veronica Vance and her family from a hotel fire in Monaco, a inferno that nearly claimed them all.

My reward was Veronica' s hand in marriage, an alliance forged in ash and supposed gratitude.

On our wedding night, she didn't look at me with love, her eyes were cold, filled with something else.

"You ruined everything," she whispered, her voice like ice.

She believed my heroism had overshadowed Julian Croft, the man she truly loved, the man who had conveniently "disappeared" during the fire after she expected him to be the hero.

She had me kidnapped.

Her men dragged me to a rotting shack deep in the Louisiana bayous.

They threw me into a dark, stagnant pool.

Alligators.

The last thing I saw was Veronica' s face, serene, as Julian, the man she thought lost, reappeared beside her, a smirk on his face, his arms full of stolen art he'd looted during the fire's chaos.

He' d played her, and she' d killed me for it.

Then, I woke up.

Not in the bayou, not with searing pain, but here, on "The Starlight Express," a luxury train cutting through the Colorado mountains.

I was "Elias," a train attendant.

The exact moment replayed, the air thick with impending doom.

News crackled through the radio: a trestle bridge ahead, sabotaged. Armed men spotted nearby.

This time, I knew.

This time, I wouldn't be a hero for those who would destroy me.

Let them face their own fate. My past kindness had earned me a pit of alligators.

Never again.

A shrill voice cut through the rising panic in the carriage.

"You! Attendant!"

Veronica Vance, here, on this train, her face a mask of aristocratic disdain.

She jabbed a finger at me, her eyes cold, just as I remembered from that wedding night.

"Go out there and check the bridge! Your life is expendable; ours are not!"

Her words, sharp and cruel, echoed the disdain she' d shown before she sent me to my death.

I looked at her, this woman I once thought I could love, the woman who fed me to monsters.

The naivety was long gone, burned away in that Monaco fire and drowned in that Louisiana swamp.

"Hold on!"

A gruff voice, Dave Miller, an older attendant, stepped forward.

"Last winter, when we were caught in that sudden avalanche, Elias here rerouted us and found a safe passage! He knows how to handle emergencies!"

Passengers, their faces pale with fear, turned to me, hope flickering in their eyes.

"Please, help us!" one woman cried, clutching her child.

I looked at their desperate faces, then at Veronica' s sneer.

The memory of teeth tearing at my flesh, the murky water filling my lungs, it was still too fresh.

I shook my head, my voice flat, devoid of emotion.

"There's nothing to be done."

"We're going to crash."