The Traitor's Bride: Unleashed

The first thing I felt was the cold marble against my cheek.

Then, the sharp, metallic smell of my own blood.

My husband, Ryan Scott, stood over me, his face twisted with hateful satisfaction as I drew my last breath on the execution platform.

He blamed me for something I didn't do, for the deaths of a woman and her son he was obsessed with.

My powerful family, once my shield, was destroyed; my father, executed.

I woke with a gasp in my New York penthouse, the sun streaming through the windows – it was today, the day it all began again.

My chief of staff called, panicked, about Ryan' s public protest demanding the release of an immigrant woman and her son, accused spies.

In my first life, I begged Ryan to stop, used my family' s influence to deport them, and they were executed by their home country, sealing my fate.

Ryan' s love turned to a decade of simmering hatred that ended with my own brutal execution.

But this time, as he stormed into our bedroom, accusing me, I knew he remembered it all too, yet learned nothing.

He tried to humiliate me, then bombed our penthouse to erase me from his twisted new timeline.

I barely escaped, only to see him planning a full-blown coup, foreign mercenaries at his side, ready to burn Washington to the ground.

Why was he doing this?

Why was he still so blind, so obsessed with a foreign national, willing to betray everything for her?

And why was I the only one who remembered the true depths of his depravity?

Not this time.

I called his uncle, activated a secret family pact, and set in motion a battle for the fate of our nation, determined to ensure the history I knew would never repeat itself.

The first thing I felt was the cold marble against my cheek. Then, the sharp, metallic smell of blood.

My husband, Ryan Scott, was standing over me. His face, usually handsome, was twisted with a satisfaction I had never seen before.

"You let them die," he said, his voice low and full of hate. "You and your family's corrupt power deserved this."

He was talking about Maria and her son, Luis. In this future, they had been dead for years. He blamed me.

A soldier grabbed my arm and forced me to my knees. The crowd in the square was silent, watching. My father, Senator Clark Johns, was already dead, executed on Ryan's order. Now it was my turn.

The last thing I saw was Ryan turning to Maria, the woman he had installed as his partner, and kissing her.

I woke up with a gasp, my body shaking.

The silk sheets of my bed were tangled around me. I was in our New York penthouse, not on a cold execution platform. The sun was streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows. It was today. The day it all began.

My phone buzzed on the nightstand. It was my chief of staff.

"Gabrielle, are you watching the news?" she asked, her voice tight with panic.

I didn't need to. I already knew what was happening. I walked to the window and looked down at the street. Far below, in front of the Capitol, a protest was forming. At its center was my husband, Ryan Scott.

He was a decorated former Special Forces Major, now the head of Scott Global Security, the world's largest private military contractor. And he was using his fame to demand the release of an immigrant woman, Maria, and her son, Luis. They had been detained by Homeland Security on suspicion of espionage.

"The Senator is furious," my aide continued. "He says this is a political disaster. He wants you to call Ryan, to make him stop. He thinks Ryan will listen to you."

In my first life, I did exactly that. I was a fool in love, terrified of the scandal. I begged Ryan to stand down. I used my family's influence to get Maria and Luis quietly deported. They were executed by their home country, and Ryan's love for me turned into a decade-long, simmering hatred that ended with my own execution.

This time, I would not make the same mistake.

"No," I said, my voice cold and steady.

"What? Gabrielle, you have to..."

"Ryan is a man who makes his own choices," I interrupted. "Let him make them."

I hung up the phone.

I knew what this meant. This was my second chance. A chance to save my father, my family, and myself. The naive girl who died on that platform was gone. The woman who woke up in her place would be ruthless.

The door to our bedroom burst open. Ryan stormed in, his face a mask of fury. His eyes, the same eyes from my dream, were filled with a cold, familiar hatred.

"You," he spat. "This is your doing."

I stayed calm, looking at him from across the room. I was no longer the wife who would have shrunk from his anger.

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Ryan."

"Don't play dumb with me, Gabrielle," he snarled, stepping closer. "You and your father. You framed an innocent woman, a refugee, just to satisfy your pathetic jealousy. You couldn't stand that I cared about someone else."

His words confirmed my suspicion. He had the dream too. He was reborn, just like me. But he hadn't learned a thing. He was still the arrogant man from the future, convinced of his own righteousness, blinded by his obsession with Maria.

"Maria is not my concern," I said flatly. "Your public tantrum, however, is."

"I will protect her," he vowed, his jaw tight. "I will protect her and Luis, no matter what it costs. I won't let you kill them again."

Again. The word hung in the air between us. So, he remembered everything. He remembered their deaths, and he was already blaming me for them, just like before.

"Do what you must, Ryan," I said, turning away from him.

I walked to my closet and began to pack a bag. I didn't need many things. Just the essentials.

He watched me, confused by my lack of a fight. "What are you doing?"

"I'm leaving," I said simply. "I'm going to my father's office. And then I'm filing for divorce."

His face went from anger to disbelief. "Divorce? You can't divorce me."

"Watch me."

I zipped the bag and walked towards the door. He blocked my path.

"You think you can just walk away? After what you did?"

"I haven't done anything yet," I said, looking him straight in the eye. "But I will. This time, I won't be the one on my knees."

I pushed past him and left the penthouse without looking back. The war had begun, and I had just fired the first shot. I went straight to my father's office in the Senate building.

He was on the phone, his face grim. When he saw me, he ended the call.

"Gabrielle. What is the meaning of this? Your husband is making a mockery of this family on national television."

"Father, I need a divorce," I said, without preamble.

He stared at me, his political mind calculating the fallout. "A divorce? Now? The timing is catastrophic."

"The timing is perfect," I corrected him. "Ryan is no longer the man we thought he was. He is a threat. To you, to our family, to the country. I need to be free of him, officially."

I told him everything. Not about the dream-he would think I was insane. But I told him about Ryan's radical new beliefs, his obsession with Maria, and his declaration that he would protect her at any cost.

My father, a man who had seen everything in Washington, listened intently. The anger in his eyes was replaced by a cold, strategic focus.

"You're right," he said finally. "If he's willing to go this far for this woman, he's a liability we can't afford. I'll have my lawyers draw up the papers."

He trusted my judgment. That was my first victory.