Chapter 1

The final memory of my past life was cold and sharp, a digital execution. I remember the glare of the monitors as David Chen, my ex-fiancé, stood on the stage of his company' s IPO launch, his face projected a hundred feet high. He wasn't dead. He was alive, and he was destroying me.

"Sarah Miller," he'd said, his voice a weapon, "hacked my systems. She tried to steal my intellectual property."

The cameras flashed, the world watched.

"My girlfriend, Emily, saved my work," he continued, pulling her close. "Sarah just tried to con my grieving family and ruin Emily's reputation."

The fallout was immediate. I was blacklisted. Federal agents raided my family' s small digital forensics firm, the one my grandfather started, the one built on the rumored ability to speak to the "digital afterlife." They seized our servers, and with a few keystrokes from David' s new allies, our digital assets, our life's work, were wiped clean. My family was ruined.

I remember his final, public challenge, a sneer on his face. "You claim to be able to recover anything? Then use your skills to bring back my reputation and my company's integrity! If you can't, you'll pay for what you did."

I paid. We all did.

Until now.

The sharp, insistent chime of a doorbell cut through the silence of my small apartment.

Ding-dong.

My breath caught in my throat. I knew that sound. It was the same sound that had started my nightmare. I was standing in the same spot, wearing the same faded jeans, the scent of stale coffee in the air. The calendar on my wall read October 12th. The day after David Chen was reported dead. The day his parents came to my door.

In my memory, I had opened that door. I had seen the desperate, grieving faces of Mrs. and Mr. Chen. I had taken the hefty payment. I had accepted their promises of reconciliation. I had taken David' s dead laptop, its case physically shattered, and I poured my soul into it, trying to give them answers, trying to find a piece of the man I once loved.

And in return, he' d risen from the grave to crucify me.

Ding-dong.

The bell chimed again, more insistent this time.

"Sarah, please! We know you're in there," Mrs. Chen's muffled voice pleaded from the other side. "It's about David. We need your help."

My hand was on the doorknob, my muscles tensed from habit, ready to turn it, ready to walk that same path to hell.

But this time, I knew where the path led.

I let my hand fall to my side. I took a deep breath, the air feeling real and solid in my lungs for the first time. I was back. I didn't know how or why, but I was back at the moment it all went wrong.

And I would not make the same mistake.

I walked to the door and pressed my face against the cool wood, my voice steady and clear.

"Go away."

There was a moment of shocked silence.

"Sarah? It's us, the Chens," Mr. Chen said, his voice laced with confusion and authority. "We need to talk to you. It's urgent."

"I heard you," I said, not moving. "My answer is no. I can't help you."

"What are you talking about? Your firm is the best," Mrs. Chen cried. "They say you can recover anything. Please, we just want to know what happened to our son!"

Her grief was a painful echo of the past, but this time, it didn't move me. It was a tool, and I knew who was wielding it.

"That's just a conspiracy theory," I said, my voice cold. "A ghost story people tell about my family. No one can truly recover data from a device that's been physically destroyed."

I was lying, of course. My family' s skill was very real. It was our legacy. But I would not use it for them. Not again.

I added the final, dismissive touch. "Besides, David Chen has too much unfinished business to just disappear like that. I'm sure he'll turn up."

The silence on the other side of the door was heavy, thick with disbelief and growing anger. I waited, my heart pounding a slow, steady rhythm. This was the first stone I was laying on a new path.

Suddenly, the lock on my door clicked. It began to turn.

My blood ran cold. He was here. Already.

The door swung open, not pushed by the elderly Chens, but by him.

David Chen stood in the doorway, perfectly alive, his charismatic smile a cruel slash on his handsome face. He wasn't a ghost. He wasn't a memory. He was flesh and blood, wearing a dark, expensive suit, looking every bit the rising tech CEO he was supposed to be. His parents stood behind him, their expressions a mixture of confusion and relief.

"See, Mom, Dad? I told you she was hiding something," David said, his eyes locking onto mine. There was no warmth in them, only a chilling, possessive fire. "She knew I wasn't dead."

He stepped inside, his presence filling my small apartment, sucking all the air out. Emily White, his "new girlfriend," slipped in behind him, a picture of innocence with a deceptive, sweet smile.

"Sarah," David said, his voice dropping to a low, intimate growl. "You didn't open the door. That's a new choice. It seems you've... changed."

My mind raced. How could he know? How could he possibly know this was a second chance for me? Was he mocking me? Or did he know something more?

"Get out of my apartment," I said, my voice trembling slightly.

David chuckled, a low, humorless sound. He looked around the room, at the stacks of old hard drives, the schematics on the walls. "Still living in this digital graveyard. Pathetic."

He turned back to me, his smile gone. "My parents came to you for help. As my former fiancée, the least you could do is show some decency. Instead, you spout nonsense about me having 'unfinished business.' What a cold thing to say."

"It's the truth," I shot back, finding my footing. The initial shock was wearing off, replaced by a cold, hard anger. "You faked your death. You manipulated your own parents. And you were about to use me to do... what? Validate your story? Give you a platform for your miraculous return?"

Emily gasped, placing a hand on David' s arm. "David, she's being cruel. How can she say such things?"

"It's alright, Emily," David said, patting her hand, but his eyes never left mine. "She's just bitter. She can't stand to see me happy with you."

The words were almost identical to the ones he would use in the future, at the IPO press conference. This was a script, and he was playing his part perfectly.

"You're right," I said, a strange calm settling over me. "I have changed. I'm no longer the naive girl who would sacrifice everything for you. So whatever game you're playing, count me out."

David's eyes narrowed. He took a step closer, his voice a low threat. "You think you have a choice? After what you did? You tried to ruin me, Sarah. You were jealous of my success."

The accusation was so absurd, so completely backward from the truth I had lived, that I almost laughed. In my past life, I had helped build his company from the ground up. The core of his revolutionary data compression algorithm was based on my research. I gave it to him as a gift, a symbol of my love and belief in him.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," I said flatly. "But I do know this: you are trespassing. Get out, or I'm calling the police."

"The police?" David laughed, a sharp, ugly sound. "Detective Jones is already on my payroll. They think you're an unstable, jilted ex. Who do you think they're going to believe?"

He was closing the trap, the same trap as before. But this time, I wasn't an unsuspecting animal.

"Believe what you want," I said, shrugging. "But I'm not helping you. I'm not touching any of your devices. My family's firm is officially retired from the 'digital afterlife' business."

A flicker of something-annoyance? surprise?-crossed his face. This was not going according to his plan. He had expected me to be emotional, to either fight or crumble. He hadn't expected indifference.

"Fine," he snarled, his mask of charm slipping completely. "Have it your way. But don't think you can just walk away from this. You're still a part of this story, whether you like it or not."

He turned to a new target. Leaning down, he picked up a small, silver locket from my desk. It was a gift from my brother, Liam, with a microscopic data chip inside containing photos of our family.

"What's this?" David asked, his voice deceptively casual.

"Put it down," I warned.

He ignored me, his thumb pressing on the clasp. "Always so sentimental, Sarah. Holding onto the past."

Before I could react, he walked over to the window and, with a flick of his wrist, tossed the locket out into the street below.

I stared at him, stunned. That hadn't happened last time. This was different. He was testing me, pushing me.

"You're a monster," I whispered.

"No," he said, turning back to me, his face a cold, hard mask. "I'm a survivor. And I'm just getting started. You've had your little... rebirth, your second chance. Fine. Let's see what you do with it. But from now on, you're not to have contact with my parents. You're not to speak my name. You will stay in this pathetic little apartment and watch as I build an empire."

He was acknowledging it. He was saying it out loud, as if he knew. My blood ran cold.

"And just so we're clear," he added, his voice dropping again. "Emily is my future. You... you are just a ghost. A bad memory I'm choosing to erase."

He turned and walked out, Emily and his parents trailing in his wake like satellites caught in his orbit. The door slammed shut, leaving me in the sudden, deafening silence.

I stood there for a long moment, my body trembling not with fear, but with a rage so pure it felt like ice in my veins. He thought he had won. He thought he had set the terms of my new life, confining me to this prison.

But he was wrong. He hadn't just confined me. He had given me a target.

My phone buzzed. It was a text from an unknown number.

I opened it. The message was simple, a single line that promised a storm was coming.

"The Phoenix IPO is scheduled for next Friday."

Next Friday. The day he had destroyed me.

A slow smile spread across my face. He thought he was erasing a ghost. He had no idea he had just declared war on one.