Chapter 1

The black car pulled up outside our small house, a sleek, expensive shadow against the faded paint.

I held my son Ethan's hand, six years old, his eyes wide.

Julian, my husband, stood beside me, his face pale.

He hadn't remembered anything before the day I found him by the roadside, injured and alone.

Six years we'd built a life, him, me, and Ethan.

A woman stepped out of the car, tall, dressed in clothes that cost more than our house.

"Julian Ashworth," she said, her voice cool.

"It's been a long time."

"Your mother is waiting."

Julian looked at her, then at me.

A flicker in his eyes.

"I... I remember," he whispered.

His eyes, the ones that had looked at me with love for six years, turned cold.

"Elara," he said, his voice different, sharp.

"This was a mistake."

"I have a life."

"A real life."

The woman, his mother, stepped forward from the car.

She didn't look at me.

"Veronica is waiting for you, Julian," she said.

Veronica.

A name I'd never heard.

Then it hit me.

Not just the shock of his words.

The world fractured.

I saw a different life.

This same scene.

Julian's cold face.

His mother's disdain.

I saw myself, broken, pleading.

I saw years of humiliation.

A grand house where I was a servant.

A son, Ethan, taught to despise me.

I saw Veronica, beautiful and cruel, always by Julian's side.

I saw the white walls of a mental institution.

Julian and Veronica put me there.

I saw Ethan, older, his face a mask of shame and pity, a syringe in his hand.

"It's for the best, Mother," he'd said in that other life.

Darkness.

Then, I was back.

Standing on the porch of our small Ohio house.

Julian was still speaking.

"...an unfortunate chapter."

"An embarrassment."

His mother held out a check.

"One million dollars, Miss Vance."

"For your trouble."

"Disappear."

In my first life, I screamed.

I cried.

I refused.

This time, something inside me was cold, hard.

The pain was an old scar, not a fresh wound.

I knew what came next.

I wouldn't live it again.

"Thank you," I said.

My voice was steady.

Julian stared, surprised by my calm.

His mother's perfectly sculpted eyebrow rose.

This was not just a betrayal.

This was a rebirth.

I had a chance.

And I would take it.