I died on a satisfie, bleeding out on my kitchen floor while my husband watched. The last thing I saw was Connor stepping over my body to answer his phone. "Hey, babe. Yeah, she's handled. The house is ours now." Then everything went black. When I opened my eyes again, I was twenty-two, standing at the altar, about to say "I do." And just like before, a stream of glowing text scrolled across my vision— [Here we go again. The moment she satisfie her life.] [Connor marries her for the inheritance, gets his mistress pregnant within a year.] [By twenty-five, he poisons her slowly with her own anxiety medication.] [By twenty-eight, he kills her and makes it look like suicide.] [And the mistress? She wears Mia's wedding ring to the funeral.] My bouquet slipped from my fingers. The church went silent. Three hundred guests stared. Connor's hand found my elbow, squeezing just hard enough to bruise. His smile never wavered, but his whisper was ice: "Pick it up, Mia. Don't embarrass me." In my first life, I obeyed. I always obeyed. I picked up the bouquet, said my vows, and walked into seven years of hell. But now? I looked at Connor—his perfect jaw, his practiced smile, the way his eyes slid to the third pew where a woman in a cream dress sat watching us. Vanessa. She was already here. At my wedding. Wearing cream. Almost white. The audacity would have destroyed me before. Now it just confirmed everything. The priest cleared his throat: "Do you, Mia Ashford, take Connor Reid to be your lawfully wedded husband?" The words floated before my eyes again— [Say no. SAY NO. This is her only chance!] [But if she doesn't marry him, she loses access to everything she needs to take him down.] [The Ashford inheritance clause requires marriage by twenty-two or the money goes to her stepmother.] [She's trapped either way.] My throat tightened. They were right. My father's will was iron-clad. Marry by twenty-two, or my stepmother, Diane, inherits the entire Ashford estate. Diane, who had been feeding Connor information for years. Who had introduced him to Vanessa in the first place. If I said no now, I'd lose everything. No money, no leverage, no proof. But if I said yes, I'd be walking back into the cage. Unless this time, I was the one holding the key. I smiled—a real smile, the kind that made Connor's eyes narrow with suspicion. "I do." The church erupted in applause. Connor kissed me, and his lips felt like a brand. But as we walked down the aisle, I caught Vanessa's eye. She smirked at me—triumphant, possessive, already counting the months until she'd replace me. I smiled back. She had no idea that I'd already memorized the date she would try to open a joint account with my husband. The restaurant where Connor would first slip crushed pills into my wine. The exact moment Diane would forge my signature on the revised will. This time, every trap they set would snap shut on their own fingers. As we climbed into the limousine, Connor's phone buzzed. He tilted the screen away from me, but I didn't need to see it. I already knew the text by heart. It was from Vanessa: "How long until we get rid of her?" In my first life, the answer was six years. In this life, they wouldn't last six months. But first—I needed to find the one person who had tried to warn me before I died. The voicemail I'd deleted without listening. The call I'd ignored because Connor told me she was crazy. My mother's best friend, Ruth. The woman Connor had murdered three months before he murdered me.
