Chapter 1

The new penthouse apartment smelled of fresh paint and money. It was supposed to be a surprise for Chloe, a monument to our future. Instead, it felt like a tomb. I stood in the marble entryway, the silence pressing in on me, broken only by the faint hum of the city below.

In my hand, I held a single sheet of paper. It was a medical report. Not mine. It was Liam O'Connell's. My childhood friend. My fiancée's secret lover.

The words on the page were cold and clinical, but they screamed a death sentence. A highly contagious, life-threatening illness. The kind that doesn't just kill you, it rots you from the inside out. The kind that spreads.

This was the moment. The exact same moment as before.

A memory, sharp and brutal, tore through me. In my last life, I had stormed into the bedroom at this exact second. I had shoved this same report in their faces. I had screamed. I had raged.

The scene played out in my head like a horror movie I was forced to re-watch. Liam, shocked and cornered, had lunged at me. We fought. It was clumsy and pathetic. He tripped, hit his head on the corner of the heavy oak bed frame, and never got up. An accident.

Chloe's grief had turned into a venomous, twisted thing. She blamed me. She waited. And when I least expected it, she came for me. But she didn't just come for me. She took my parents, too. A staged car accident, a fire. She made sure we all burned together. My last sensation wasn't the heat, but her smiling face as she watched.

I remembered the acrid smell of burning gasoline. I remembered my mother' s screams. I remembered my own helplessness as the flames ate everything.

This time would be different.

I walked over to the kitchen's industrial-grade paper shredder, another one of Chloe' s expensive demands. The machine whirred to life. I fed Liam's medical report into it, watching the strips of paper fall like confetti into the bin below.

Let them have their secrets. Let nature take its course.

This wasn't about forgiveness. It was about justice. A cold, patient, and meticulously planned justice. I wouldn't be the one to expose them. I would simply create the stage, and let them expose themselves to the world.

Just then, a sound drifted from the master bedroom down the hall. A low moan, followed by a soft, feminine giggle.

It was Chloe.

The sound was a physical thing, crawling over my skin. I knew that giggle. It was the one she used when she thought she was being charmingly naughty. She'd used it with me a thousand times.

I leaned against the cool marble wall, my knuckles white as I gripped the counter's edge.

Another memory surfaced. Chloe, sitting across from me at a five-star restaurant, her eyes wide and innocent. She was telling me about a "charity trip" she needed to take. She needed a significant donation for the "underprivileged children." I later found out the money funded a lavish week-long getaway with Liam in the Caribbean.

She had a talent for it, this kind of deception. She could look you in the eye and lie with a sincerity that would make a saint feel guilty for doubting her. She had built her entire social media empire on that curated image of sweetness and philanthropy. It was all fake.

My stomach churned. The phantom smell of gasoline filled my nostrils again, and I gagged, steadying myself on the counter. The trauma of that fiery death was etched into my very soul, a ghost limb that ached with a pain no one else could see. I would not let that happen to my parents again. They were the only thing that mattered.

Turning my back on the bedroom door, I walked out of the penthouse. I didn't slam the door. I closed it softly, the click of the latch sounding unnaturally loud in the quiet hallway. They probably didn't even hear it.

An hour later, I was parked in front of my parents' house. It was the same modest suburban home I grew up in. The porch light was on, a warm yellow beacon in the encroaching twilight.

My mother, Sarah, opened the door before I even knocked. Her face lit up.

"Ethan! What a surprise! Come in, come in. Is Chloe with you?"

The warmth of her hug was real, a stark contrast to the sterile cold of the penthouse. My father, Tom, looked up from his newspaper in the living room, a genuine smile on his face.

"Son. Good to see you."

This was what I was fighting for. This simple, unadorned love. The life Chloe had stolen from them.

I sat down on the familiar worn couch. My mother bustled around, getting me a drink.

"Mom, Dad," I started, my voice steadier than I expected. "I have something to tell you."

They both looked at me, their expressions shifting to concern.

"I'm calling off the wedding. Chloe and I are over."

My mother gasped, placing a hand over her heart. "What? Ethan, what happened? You two were so happy. Did you have a fight? You can work it out, honey."

Her reaction was expected. She believed in Chloe's perfect facade.

But my father's reaction was not what I expected. He slowly folded his newspaper and placed it on the coffee table. He looked at me, his eyes sharp and serious.

"Good," he said, his voice a low rumble. "It's about time."

My mother and I both stared at him, stunned into silence.

"Tom! What are you saying?" she asked, bewildered.

My father ignored her, his gaze fixed on me. "I never liked her, son. There was always something off about that girl. Too polished. Too perfect. People who seem too good to be true usually are."

A wave of relief washed over me, so potent it almost made me dizzy. I wasn't alone in this. Not entirely.

In my last life, I had defended Chloe against his quiet suspicions. I had called him cynical and old-fashioned. I had been a fool, blinded by a carefully constructed fantasy. I had led my own parents to their deaths because of my own stupidity.

Never again.