Chapter 1

"He's in septic shock. We need a bone marrow transplant, now."

The doctor' s words were flat, devoid of emotion, but they hit me harder than any physical blow. He was talking about Julian Croft, the man my wife, Elara Vance, loved.

"His marrow type is rare. We've run the database. There's only one match in the entire country," the doctor continued, his eyes on a tablet. He looked up at me, then at my father, Caleb Blackwood. "Your wife, Mary-Anne Blackwood."

My blood ran cold.

"No," I said, my voice a low growl. "Absolutely not."

Elara didn't even look at me. Her focus was entirely on Julian, lying pale and still in the hospital bed. She turned to my father, her voice like ice. "Mr. Blackwood, name your price."

"My wife is not for sale," my father shot back, his face like stone. He was the patriarch of the Blackwood family, a man of old Montana money and pride. This arranged marriage had been a disaster from the start.

Elara' s lips tightened into a thin, merciless line. She pulled out her phone and made a call. "Shut down every Blackwood account. Freeze their assets. Start foreclosure proceedings on the ranch. Now."

I stared at her, horrified. This wasn't the Elara I knew. Or, the Elara I had known.

"Elara, please," I begged, stepping in front of her. "Don't do this. My mother… she' s not strong enough for this kind of procedure."

She finally looked at me, her eyes empty of any warmth. "She' ll survive. Julian might not."

Her security guards, two men built like mountains, moved toward my father. He stood his ground, but I knew we were powerless against the Vance fortune. She was a tech titan, a ruthless CEO. We were ranchers. We had land and history; she had the world in her palm.

"I won't let you," I said, my voice shaking with rage.

Elara just smiled, a cold, chilling thing. "You don't have a choice, Asher." She gestured to her men. "Take him back to the ranch. Make sure he doesn't interfere. The storm cellar should do."

They grabbed me. I fought, but it was useless. They dragged me out of the hospital, my pleas echoing down the sterile hallway, unheard by the woman I called my wife. They threw me into the damp, musty cellar on our own property and locked the heavy door. The last thing I heard was the sound of a helicopter landing, coming to take my mother away.

Hours later, the door creaked open. It was Elara.

She stood there, silhouetted against the weak light. "The transplant was a success. Julian is stable."

I looked up at her from the dirt floor, my heart a hollow ache. "And my mother?"

"She's fine," Elara said, her tone dismissive. "I'm staying at the hospital with Julian. Don't expect me home."

She turned to leave.

"Why?" The word tore from my throat. "Why are you doing this, Elara? What happened to you?"

She paused, her back to me. "You should ask yourself that question, Asher." Then she was gone, leaving me in the dark.

I punched the wall, pain shooting up my arm, but it was nothing compared to the agony in my chest. I sank to the floor, my mind reeling. This wasn't real. It couldn't be.

Because I was reborn.

This was my second chance, a life given back to me after I had so spectacularly ruined the first one.

In my first life, Elara Vance had loved me with a devotion that bordered on worship. She was my wife then, too, an arranged marriage between her new money and my old name. But I had scorned her. I was in love with my high school sweetheart, a woman who was the very picture of sweetness and light.

I remembered it all with a clarity that burned. I remembered humiliating Elara at parties, flaunting my affair in her face. I remembered her quiet tears, her unwavering support for my family's business even as I broke her heart. She poured her own fortune into our failing ranch, never asking for a thing in return.

My "sweetheart" was a snake. She manipulated me, bled me dry, and conspired with our rivals to ruin the Blackwood name. In the end, when it all came crashing down, when I was cornered and facing death, it was Elara who stood in front of me. She took a bullet meant for me.

Her last words, whispered as she died in my arms, were "I love you, Asher. Always."

I died moments later, my last thought a storm of regret so powerful it felt like it could tear the universe apart.

And then, I woke up. I was twenty-five again, on my wedding day with Elara. Reborn. Given a chance to do it right.

For a year, I had tried. I showered her with the love and affection I had denied her in our first life. I was the perfect, doting husband. But it was all wrong. In this life, she was cold, distant. And then Julian Croft appeared. An artist from Brooklyn, a man she showered with the kind of affection she had once reserved only for me. It was a twisted, cruel reversal of our past life.

I had been confused, heartbroken. But this… this was different. Forcing my mother into surgery, locking me in a cellar… this was pure cruelty.

The woman I loved, the woman who had died for me, was gone. In her place was a monster.

And I couldn't take it anymore.

The love I felt for her, a love that had survived death and rebirth, was finally starting to die.

I had to get away. I had to take my parents and leave, escape her influence before she destroyed us all.

I waited until morning, when one of the ranch hands let me out. I drove straight to the hospital where they'd taken my mother.

She was asleep, looking pale and frail. I sat by her bed, my hand gripping hers, and a wave of guilt washed over me. "I'm so sorry, Mom. This is my fault."

Her eyes fluttered open. She gave my hand a weak squeeze. "It's not your fault, Asher. It's her." She looked confused. "I don't understand. She used to be so sweet to you. She looked at you like you hung the moon."

That was the Elara from my first life. The Elara I had thrown away.

"That's changed, Mom," I said, my voice thick. "I'm divorcing her. As soon as you're well enough to travel, we're leaving. We'll go somewhere she can't find us. Europe, maybe. Start over."

My mother hesitated, the traditionalist in her warring with her maternal instinct. "A divorce… Asher, the Blackwood name…"

"The Blackwood name means nothing if we're not safe," I said firmly. "She hurt you, Mom. I won't let that happen again. It's over."

She saw the resolve in my eyes and finally nodded. "Okay, son. Okay."

A sense of relief, fragile but real, settled over me. I had a plan. We would escape.

I left her room to get some water, my mind already working on the logistics of selling assets quietly, getting new passports. As I walked down the hall, I didn't see the gurney being wheeled quickly around the corner.

I collided with it, a sharp pain exploding in my leg as I went down hard. The world tilted, and then everything went black.

I woke up in a hospital bed. My leg was in a cast. Elara was sitting in a chair by the window, looking at her phone.

"Don't bother," she said without looking up. "The doctors said it's a simple fracture. You're not getting any sympathy from me."

My heart sank. Even this, she saw as a ploy.

Just then, her assistant walked in, carrying a bag of food. "I brought lunch for Mr. Croft, Ms. Vance. Just as you ordered. No shellfish, no nuts."

Elara nodded. "Thank you. Julian is allergic to shellfish, you know. A severe reaction."

The world stopped.

Shellfish.

Julian was allergic to shellfish.

But I was the one with the severe shellfish allergy. In our first life, Elara didn't know about it until late in our marriage, after a terrifying incident at a restaurant in Seattle. It was a private, painful memory. There was no way she could know that detail about me in this life, let alone transfer it to her new lover.

Unless.

Unless she remembered too.

The thought hit me with the force of a physical blow. All the coldness, the cruelty, the twisted role-reversal… it wasn't random. It was targeted. It was punishment.

She was reborn too. And she was making me pay.

I stared at her, my mind racing, connecting all the dots. Her indifference, her obsession with Julian, her precise cruelty. It was all a performance. A long, elaborate, torturous revenge.

"Elara," I said, my voice barely a whisper.

She finally looked at me, her expression bored. "What?"

"You're reborn too, aren't you?"