Chapter 1

The memory was burned into his mind, a scene that played on a loop in his darkest moments.

It was the rain, the cold, hard rain that soaked him to the bone.

He was kneeling on the wet asphalt, the rough surface digging into his knees. His son, his little Leo, was lying just a few feet away.

So still.

A small, dark bundle against the gleaming black street.

The hit-and-run had been so fast, a blur of headlights and the sickening sound of impact. It happened while they were trying to run, trying to escape the chaos after he confronted Olivia.

Daniel Thorne stood over him, his expensive suit somehow still perfect despite the downpour. His face was a mask of cold annoyance.

"You should have stayed away, Ethan."

He had come here seeking an explanation. Six months. Six months since Olivia had left for her sister' s funeral, promising to be back soon. He had found out she hadn't just vanished, she had upgraded. She had taken her dead sister' s life, her gallery, and her wealthy fiancé, Daniel.

He had just wanted to ask her why.

Why she would abandon him and their five-year-old son, leaving them to drown in debt from the tech repair shop they were supposed to build together, the dream she claimed to share.

The confrontation had gone wrong. The bodyguards had been brutal, shoving him away from the gallery entrance. In the confusion, Leo, scared and crying, had darted into the street.

Now, Daniel' s men were holding him down. Ethan' s arm was broken, a sharp pain shooting up from his wrist. His head throbbed. But none of it mattered.

The only thing that mattered was the small, still shape on the road.

"Leo…" he choked out, the name a shard of glass in his throat.

Olivia finally emerged from the gallery. She walked slowly, an umbrella held over her head by an assistant. She looked at the scene with a chilling lack of emotion. Her eyes, the same eyes he had fallen in love with, were now cold and empty.

She looked at Leo' s body. She looked at him, broken and bleeding on the pavement.

There was no sadness. No shock. Nothing.

"This is what happens when you don' t listen, Ethan," she said, her voice as calm as a frozen lake.

"He' s our son, Olivia," Ethan pleaded, his voice cracking. "Our little boy…"

"He was a mistake," she said flatly. "A tie to a life I' ve left behind."

Daniel put a possessive arm around her shoulder. "We offered you money. You should have taken it."

Ethan stared at her, disbelief warring with a tidal wave of pure, undiluted hatred. This woman, this monster, was the struggling artist he had defied his billionaire family for. The woman he had loved more than his own life.

"You have to protect what is important," Olivia continued, as if explaining a simple business transaction. "It' s a family tradition. My sister understood it. Now I do. We marry for prosperity, for the good of the family. You and… that… were holding me back."

She pulled a check from her purse and let it flutter down into a puddle near his face.

"Here. A thousand dollars a month. Disappear, Ethan. If you ever come near me or Daniel again, I' ll make sure you end up right next to him."

She gestured with her chin toward Leo' s body.

Something inside Ethan snapped.

The grief, the pain, the betrayal-it all ignited into a firestorm of rage. He didn' t feel his broken arm anymore. He didn' t feel the hands holding him down.

With a roar that was more animal than human, he surged to his feet, throwing the bodyguards off him with a strength he didn' t know he possessed.

He lunged for Olivia.

He saw the flicker of fear in her eyes for the first time. It was satisfying.

He wrapped his hands around her throat.

Daniel and his men shouted, trying to pull him off, but he held on. Her expensive perfume filled his senses, a sickeningly sweet smell of betrayal.

Her face was turning purple. Her eyes bulged.

He felt a sharp, piercing pain in his side, then another. Daniel was stabbing him with something. A pocketknife, maybe. It didn' t matter.

He squeezed harder.

The world began to go dark around the edges. His last conscious thought was of his son, his sweet, innocent Leo, and the cold, dead eyes of the woman who had destroyed them both.

Then, there was only darkness.

Until there wasn' t.

Ethan' s eyes flew open.

He gasped, sucking in air as if he' d been underwater for an eternity.

He was in his bed. Their bed.

The familiar lumpy mattress of their small apartment above the tech repair shop. Sunlight streamed through the cheap blinds, casting stripes across the worn comforter.

His heart was hammering against his ribs, a frantic drumbeat of terror and confusion. He frantically checked his body. No stab wounds. His arm wasn't broken.

He heard a small cough from the other side of the room. He turned his head so fast his neck ached.

Leo was sitting on the floor, playing with his favorite set of worn-out building blocks. He looked up, his bright, innocent eyes meeting Ethan' s.

"Daddy, you' re awake! Can we have pancakes?"

Leo was alive.

He was alive and perfect and real.

Tears streamed down Ethan' s face. He scrambled out of bed and rushed to his son, pulling him into a desperate hug. He held Leo so tight the boy grunted in protest.

"Daddy, you' re squishing me!"

"I' m sorry, buddy. I' m so sorry," Ethan sobbed, burying his face in Leo' s soft hair, inhaling the scent of him, the pure, living proof that this was real.

A door opened.

Olivia walked into the room, a small suitcase in her hand. She was dressed in a simple black dress. She looked exactly as he remembered her from that morning. The morning she left.

"I' m heading out now," she said, her voice soft and concerned, the perfect imitation of a loving wife. "The funeral is this afternoon. I should be back in a day or two."

Ethan looked at her, and all the love he once felt was replaced by the cold, hard memory of her standing in the rain.

He stared at the calendar on the wall.

It was the day. The day she left for her sister' s funeral.

The day it all began.

He had been given a second chance.

And this time, there would be no mercy.