Chapter 1

The first thing I felt was the slow, steady beep of a machine.

It was a flat, annoying sound that cut through the fog in my head.

I opened my eyes.

The ceiling was white, sterile, with a single square light fixture that hummed.

This wasn' t my bedroom ceiling.

I tried to sit up, but a dull ache spread through my whole body, a heavy weight that pinned me to the bed.

A woman in a blue uniform walked in, holding a chart. She froze when she saw my open eyes.

Her clipboard clattered to the floor.

"Oh my God," she whispered, her hand flying to her mouth. "Dr. Roberts! Get in here! She' s awake!"

Panic started to bubble in my chest.

I didn' t know this woman. I didn' t know this room.

A man in a white coat rushed in, his eyes wide. He approached my bed slowly, as if I were a wild animal.

"Mrs. Hayes? Ava? Can you hear me?"

I nodded, my throat too dry to speak.

"Can you tell me your name?"

"Ava Reed," I croaked. My professional name. The name I built my company with. Then I corrected myself. "Ava Hayes."

"And the year?"

"2023," I said, confused. "It' s October."

The doctor and the nurse exchanged a look, a heavy, pitying glance that made my skin crawl.

"Ava," the doctor said, his voice gentle. "It' s not 2023."

He pointed to a digital screen on the wall, a calendar display I hadn' t noticed.

The date was bright and clear.

July 12, 2038.

The numbers didn' t make sense. It was a joke, a mistake.

"No," I said, my voice shaking. "That' s wrong. The car crash... it was yesterday. I was with Ethan."

"The crash was fifteen years ago, Ava."

The world tilted. Fifteen years. A decade and a half. Gone.

My mind raced, a frantic scramble to connect two impossible points in time. Lily. My daughter. She was four. She would be nineteen now.

Ethan. My husband.

"I need my phone," I demanded, my voice suddenly sharp, clear. The CEO voice. The one that got things done. "I need to call my husband. Ethan Hayes."

The nurse hesitated, looking at the doctor, who gave a slight nod. She retrieved a sleek, almost transparent device from a drawer and handed it to me. It felt alien in my hand.

She helped me find the contact. The picture was old, from our wedding. Ethan, smiling, his eyes full of a love that felt like it was from another lifetime.

I pressed the call icon.

It rang once, twice.

A voice answered, but it wasn't the voice I knew. It was cold, tired, hollowed out.

"Who is this?"

"Ethan?" I breathed, relief and fear warring inside me. "It' s me. It' s Ava."

Silence. Then a harsh, bitter laugh.

"This is a new low, even for you people. Do you get some sick thrill out of this? Leave me alone."

"What? Ethan, no, it' s really me. I' m at the hospital. I just woke up."

"Stop it," he snapped, his voice laden with a weary anger. "I don' t know who you are or what you want, but my wife is dead. She died fifteen years ago. Don' t you dare use her name again."

He was about to hang up. I could feel it.

"The scar!" I yelled, desperate. "Under your left rib, from when we tried to climb Miller' s Peak and you fell. You told everyone it was from a bike accident. And Lily... she called her stuffed bear 'Sir Reginald Fluffen-Bottom' ."

The line went dead silent. I could hear his ragged breathing.

"How... how do you know that?" he whispered.

My strength returned in a cold wave. I was no longer a confused patient, I was Ava Reed, a woman who had been robbed of fifteen years.

"Because I am your wife, you idiot," I said, my voice like steel. "I am in Oceanville General, Room 304. You have ten minutes to get here. If you are not here, I will walk out of this hospital, find our daughter, and you will never see either of us again. Do you understand me?"

I didn' t wait for an answer. I hung up.

The nurse was staring at me, her eyes a mix of awe and fear.

"He... he' s a very important man now," she stammered. "Mr. Hayes. He' s a huge philanthropist. A recluse, though. Ever since... ever since you..."

She couldn' t say the word.

"But he has a partner," she added, her voice dropping, as if sharing a secret. "A woman named Scarlett Vance. They' ve been together for years. She runs his charity foundation with him."

Scarlett Vance.

The name meant nothing to me. A stranger. A woman living my life, with my husband.

The shock turned into a cold, hard knot in my stomach. Betrayal.

But another thought shoved it aside, sharp and urgent.

"My daughter," I said, looking the nurse dead in the eye. "Lily. Where is she? I need to find my daughter."