Chapter 1

Chapter 1

On the day my husband's first love suffered a fatal hemorrhage during labor, she sent him a final message.

"We weren't meant to be in this life. In the next one, you have to find me and marry me sooner."

Silas checked the notification with a blank face. He tossed his phone aside and went back to meticulously caring for me, as I was also pregnant.

I truly believed he had finally let go of Maya.

But after he learned she had actually died on that operating table, he never smiled at me again.

He started poisoning my food every day. He pumped me full of high-potency supplements, forcing the fetus in my womb to grow unnaturally large.

It wasn't until I was screaming in agony during a traumatic labor that Silas finally showed his true colors. He roared at me with pure hatred.

"Maya must have felt this exact pain, didn't she? If you hadn't forced me to marry you, she never would have died such a miserable death!"

"You owe this to her. I want you to feel every bit of the agony she endured."

In the end, I was left to suffer. I bled out on the cold table, dying from the same complications he had orchestrated.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day Maya sent that message to Silas.

This time, I decided to step aside. I would no longer be the obstacle in their tragic love story.

…

"Honey, after your check-up, I'll take you to that steakhouse you love."

The familiar voice snapped me back to reality. I opened my eyes in the dim light and met Silas Thorne's gaze. His eyes were so tender they looked like they could melt.

If this wasn't a hallucination before death, then I had actually been reborn.

Silas was driving, one hand resting gently on my palm to soothe my nerves.

I suffered from motion sickness, and he knew it.

If I hadn't already died at his hands once, I would still be drowning in his fake sweetness.

Suddenly, Silas's phone vibrated. He calmly withdrew his hand, but I caught a glimpse of the screen.

Just like in my previous life, it was a text from Maya West.

In the past, I never asked about it. Even though I knew who it was, I didn't feel any threat because I trusted Silas completely.

I hid the burning rage in my heart and forced a thin smile.

"If it's something urgent, you should go take care of it."

I didn't call him out directly. After five years together, we knew each other's unspoken thoughts.

Silas's expression remained unchanged as he gave a dismissive reply.

"It's just something trivial. You are my only priority."

But as he spoke, his grip on the steering wheel tightened until his knuckles turned white.

I hadn't noticed these details before. Silas was just pretending he didn't care.

If he truly didn't care, why did he spend every single day of my previous life torturing me after Maya died?

I could never forget the sight of him as I was hemorrhaging. His eyes were bloodshot, and his hands were clamped around my throat with a ferocity I'd never seen.

He told me.

"Lana Reed, I've finally waited for this moment. I want you to experience everything Maya went through."

"Did you know? I never loved you. You pressured me into this marriage. If it weren't for you, Maya wouldn't have married that deadbeat loser."

"Without you, she wouldn't have died so miserably. I didn't even get to see her one last time!"

"Lana Reed, just die already!"

I didn't even have time to process the shock. The pain was too much. I cried and begged Silas to save me.

His eyes were like ice. He didn't say another word. He just stood there and watched me struggle in a pool of my own blood until the light left my eyes.

Silas had blocked the doctors from saving me.

After I died, he didn't even claim my body. Instead, he knelt at Maya's headstone and sobbed until he lost his voice.

He gently stroked the cold marble, whispering to her.

"Maya, I've avenged you. I promise I'll marry you in the next life."

The revelation shattered me. All those years, he was just waiting for the perfect moment to kill me.

He had promised me he would only love me for the rest of his life.

In this life, I won't be a character in their twisted romance anymore.