Chapter 1

The smell of gasoline and burning flesh was the last thing I remembered, a horrific perfume of my own demise. The cracking of my bones in the heat, the searing pain as fire consumed me, it was all branded into a soul I didn't know I still had. Olivia' s voice, my wife's voice, was the sharpest torture, cutting through the roar of the flames.

"You staged the kidnapping, you killed my lover and my son, how dare you still be alive!"

Her grandmother, the old matriarch I had saved, stood beside her, her face twisted with a matching fury.

"You couldn't give me a child, so you targeted my grandson, I'll teach you a lesson you'll never forget!"

They had locked me in a cage, a cage I had built for the dogs on their estate, and set it ablaze. I died watching the two people I had sacrificed everything for celebrate my death. I had given up my family's entire fortune to pay the ransom for the grandmother, I had taken multiple stab wounds to rescue her myself, an act the media had praised as the ultimate proof of our love. But it meant nothing. It only fueled the jealousy of Olivia's lover, Ethan Hayes. He took their son, Lucas, and fled, but his recklessness led them both into the sea, where they drowned. And they blamed me. They smiled as I burned.

Then, a sound cut through the memory of the flames.

A frantic, insistent ringing.

My eyes snapped open. I wasn't in a burning cage. I was in my bedroom, the one I shared with Olivia. The afternoon sun streamed through the window, glinting off the gold trim of the gaudy furniture she had picked out. The ringing continued, sharp and piercing. It was my phone, vibrating on the nightstand.

My hands were shaking, but not from fear. It was a tremor of disbelief, of a terrifying, impossible hope. I looked at the date on my phone's screen. It was the fifth anniversary of my marriage to Olivia Reed. The day her grandmother was kidnapped. The day my life had spiraled into a nightmare I was forced to live twice.

In my last life, I was a fool. I loved Olivia, or at least the idea of her. I was the docile, accommodating husband, the man from a respectable but not extravagantly wealthy family, a perfect, stable choice for the Reed dynasty. I overlooked her coldness, her constant belittling, believing that my devotion would eventually win her over. When she gave birth to a son, Lucas, on our anniversary, I was overjoyed, even though a quiet part of me knew the timing was... off. I ignored the whispers, the way Ethan Hayes, her "childhood friend," was always around, dripping with new money and arrogance.

Then the kidnapping happened. Ethan' s constant flaunting of his wealth, the lavish gifts he showered on Olivia and the baby, it attracted the wrong kind of attention. The kidnappers snatched Grandma Reed and demanded a hefty ransom, a sum the Reed family, for all their posturing, claimed they couldn't pull together quickly. They were more concerned with appearances and negotiations.

But I couldn't stand the thought of the old woman suffering. So I did it. I liquidated every asset my parents had left me, every stock, every piece of property. I gathered the cash and went alone to the drop-off point. I saved her, but I was brutally stabbed in the process. The aftermath was a media circus. I was the hero husband. Olivia played the part of the devoted wife, tending to me in the hospital, but her eyes were cold. The public praise, the narrative of our "unbreakable love," it drove Ethan mad with jealousy. His flight, the accidental death of him and the baby, Olivia's feigned grief, her meticulously planned birthday party for me that turned into my execution... it all came rushing back.

The phone was still ringing. The same number as last time. The kidnappers.

I stared at it, my heart pounding a steady, cold rhythm. Last time, I answered without hesitation. Last time, I promised to do anything. Last time, my reward was a cage and a fire.

This time, I reached over, my fingers steady. I pressed the red icon on the screen. The ringing stopped. I had hung up. A profound silence filled the room, a silence that felt like the first breath of a free man. I would let fate take its course. Her fate. Not mine.

The bedroom door burst open. Olivia stood there, her face a mask of irritation. She was holding a crying baby, Lucas. Her son. Ethan's son.

"Liam, what are you doing just sitting there? Can't you hear him crying? It's our anniversary, the least you could do is help. I have to get ready, Grandma is expecting us for dinner."

She thrust the baby towards me. Lucas, a pawn in a game he never understood, wailed louder.

In my past life, I would have rushed to take him, to soothe him, to prove my worth as a father to a child that wasn't mine. I would have felt the familiar pang of inadequacy, the desperate need for her approval.

Now, I just looked at him, then back at her. The baby' s cries were just noise. Her demands were just words.

"I'm not feeling well, Olivia," I said, my voice flat and unfamiliar even to my own ears.

She scoffed, her perfectly sculpted eyebrows rising in disbelief.

"Not feeling well? You're never 'feeling well' when there's something to be done. It's always an excuse. My grandmother is waiting. She specifically requested you be there. You know how important family image is."

Her grandmother. The woman who would later curse me as I burned to death. The irony was so thick I could taste it.

I thought about the past five years. Five years of being the Reed family's glorified servant. I managed their household finances, ran their errands, maintained their properties, all while my own inheritance was funneled into Olivia's lavish lifestyle. They saw me as a tool, a dependable, quiet machine that kept their world running smoothly. I was the stable, boring husband who made Olivia look respectable while she carried on with her lover. I was the fool who gave them everything and received only contempt in return.

"I said," I repeated, my voice colder this time, "I'm not feeling well. You go on without me."

Olivia's face hardened. This was not the Liam she knew. This was not the man who lived to please her.

"Don't be ridiculous, Liam. You have to come. What will I tell Grandma?"

Before I could answer, her phone rang. A different ringtone, a cheerful, upbeat pop song. It was Ethan.

Her whole demeanor changed. A small, secret smile touched her lips as she shifted the crying baby to one hip and answered.

"Hey," she whispered, her voice suddenly soft and intimate. "No, I'm just getting ready. Liam's being difficult, as usual."

She walked out of the room, her voice dropping lower as she moved down the hall, leaving me alone with the silence and the ghost of a fire that had yet to be lit. This time, I wouldn't be the one providing the fuel.