Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Five years after I passed away, my husband wanted me to take the fall for his childhood sweetheart again. This time, it was a DUI case.

He barged into my house with forged evidence, only to find the place empty and gathering dust. Frustrated, he pounded on the neighbor's door.

The neighbor looked at him with pity and said, "Seraphina? She's been dead for five years."

"I heard the victim's family from that old case wasn't happy with the sentence. They kidnapped her the day she got out of prison. They tortured her for three days and nights before she finally gave up the ghost."

Silas didn't believe a word of it. He snarled, convinced I had made up an elaborate lie to escape my responsibilities.

He screamed at the neighbor, "Don't think I don't know she paid you to say that!"

"Tell her that hiding won't work. If she doesn't contact me within three days, I won't pay a single cent of child support for that little stray!"

What he didn't know was that the person his sweetheart killed in the DUI was that very "stray."

...

The plane had just touched down. Silas Bennett didn't even wait to grab his luggage before calling his secretary. His voice was laced with pure impatience.

"Where is she? Have you found her yet?" Silas barked.

On the other end, the secretary stammered, "Sir, we... we still haven't been able to reach Ms. Ross..."

"Useless!" Silas snapped, stopping in his tracks.

"Do you have any idea how urgent Chloe's DUI case is? If we don't find Seraphina to take the blame, Chloe is going to prison!"

"Are you all just going to stand by and watch her life be ruined?"

The secretary's voice was a blur of apologies. Silas hung up, his face darkened with irritation.

"Fine! I can't rely on any of you. I'll handle it myself!"

He sped toward the house we once shared. I floated in the air behind him, watching him rush into the elevator with a stack of forged papers.

His handsome face was twisted with anxiety. It seemed he only ever got this frantic when it involved Chloe Vance.

"Seraphina, get out here right now!" he yelled, kicking the door open.

The apartment was cold and hollow. Thick layers of dust covered everything, proving no one had lived there for a long time.

He searched every room, his teeth gritted. "Hiding? Let's see how long you can keep this up!"

The noise drew attention. Mrs. Higgins, the neighbor, peeked her head out.

"Who are you looking for?" she asked cautiously.

Silas turned on her, his eyes flashing with rage. "Where is Seraphina? Tell her to stop playing games and get out here!"

Mrs. Higgins frowned. "Sera? She's been dead for five years."

"Dead?" Silas let out a harsh, mocking laugh. "Keep lying. She's really going all out to avoid me this time, isn't she?"

The old woman sighed. "I'm not lying to you. She died five years ago."

"I heard the family from her previous case snatched her up right outside the prison gates. They did terrible things to her for three days..."

Silas's expression froze for a split second. But then his arrogance returned like a shield.

"Ha! I know she paid you to feed me this crap. She spent a little time behind bars and now she wants to play the victim?"

I floated beside him, feeling a chill in my non-existent heart. A little time? To him, the years I spent in a cell were just a few days.

Mrs. Higgins's face darkened. "How can you be so heartless? I'm telling you the truth and you're insulting me?"

But Silas didn't care. He cut her off mid-sentence.

"Shut up! Just tell her that hiding is useless. If I don't hear from her in three days, that brat's child support is gone!"

He turned and stormed off, his heavy footsteps echoing in the hall. Mrs. Higgins shook her head and whispered to his back.

"But... didn't that poor child die in a car accident a long time ago anyway?"

Silas was already too far away to hear her. I trailed behind him, feeling a weariness I had never known.

He didn't know I was truly dead. He didn't know the "stray" he despised was his own flesh and blood.

And he certainly didn't know that the person who killed her was the woman he was currently trying to save―Chloe Vance.