Chapter 1 - The Husband Who Chose Another Woman to LiveThe kidnappers gave Victor Grant one minute to decide which woman got to live.
He used less than three seconds.
“Isabella.”
Sophia Hastings stopped breathing.
Not because of the rope cutting into her wrists. Not because her left leg was swollen beneath torn jeans or because cold rain had soaked her hair against her face. Not even because twenty feet behind her, black water slammed against the rotting pilings of an abandoned ferry terminal outside Seattle.
She stopped breathing because the man she had given up everything for had answered too quickly.
Across the warehouse, Victor stood beneath a flickering security light. His expensive coat was torn at one shoulder, but he was otherwise unharmed. Beside him, Isabella Reed trembled beautifully, her pale face wet with tears, her hands bound loosely enough that Sophia could see the gap around her wrists.
The masked man holding the gun laughed.
“Your wife or your first love, Mr. Grant. You understand the deal?”
“I already answered.”
Victor looked at Isabella.
He still had not looked at Sophia.
The masked man turned toward her.
“Nothing to say to your husband?”
Sophia tasted blood where she had bitten the inside of her cheek.
For three days, Victor had watched them hurt her whenever Isabella cried.
When their captors demanded a bank password, Victor had told Sophia to cooperate because Isabella was frightened.
When they demanded access codes to Grant Development accounts, he had accused Sophia of hiding information.
When Sophia begged him to understand that Isabella’s bindings were deliberately loose, he told her jealousy had made her paranoid.
Now he had been offered the final choice.
And still, he believed Isabella.
“Victor,” Sophia whispered.
At last, his eyes moved toward her.
There had been a time when one glance from those gray eyes could ruin her entire day. If he frowned, she wondered what she had done wrong. If he came home late, she waited awake. If he remembered her birthday, she convinced herself the flowers meant their marriage was healing.
She had been the granddaughter of William Hastings, founder of Hastings Holdings, one of the largest privately held logistics, construction, and investment companies on the West Coast.
Her personal trust, stock, and inheritance were worth more than a billion dollars.
Victor believed she had been an ordinary woman with no family and almost no money.
She had allowed him to believe it.
Three years earlier, she had walked away from her grandfather, her three older brothers, the executive office that had been waiting for her since college, and every luxury attached to the Hastings name because Victor had once told her he wanted to build a life with a woman who loved him rather than a woman whose family could buy the city around him.
So Sophia had chosen him.
Now he chose another woman.
“You really think I arranged this?” Sophia asked.
Victor’s jaw tightened.
“I think you have spent months trying to drive Isabella out of my life.”
“She poisoned herself and blamed me.”
“You’ve said that before.”
“She faked kidney failure.”
“Enough.”
“She lied about me pushing her down the stairs.”
“Enough, Sophia.”
“And now she helped arrange this.”
Isabella began sobbing.
Victor immediately turned toward her.
That was the answer Sophia had somehow needed to see twice.
The masked man grabbed the back of Sophia’s coat.
Victor finally snapped.
“What are you doing?”
“You chose.”
For one terrible second, hope rose in Sophia anyway.
Some weak, humiliating part of her still expected Victor to change his mind.
He did not.
Instead he pulled Isabella behind him.
“If only one can leave, release her. Do whatever you want with Sophia.”
Sophia stared at him.
Victor’s expression hardened, as though he needed anger to make his cruelty easier.
“You brought this on yourself,” he said. “Even now, you’re still trying to blame Isabella.”
The man behind Sophia shoved.
Cold air swallowed her.
Then black water did.
The last thing Sophia saw was Victor wrapping his coat around Isabella.
The last thing she thought was:
Grandpa was right.
Then the ocean closed over her head.
Sophia came awake screaming.
She fell from a sofa onto a cream-colored rug.
Her lungs convulsed as she clawed at her throat, expecting saltwater.
Instead she inhaled cedarwood, fireplace smoke, and the faint citrus scent of furniture polish.
“Sophia, what the hell is wrong with you?”
She froze.
Victor stood over her.
Alive.
Dry.
Angry.
Behind him were the floor-to-ceiling windows of the house they had shared in Bellevue.
Morning sunlight streamed through them.
Sophia stared at her own hands.
No cuts.
No broken nails.
No rope burns.
Her legs worked.
She touched her face.
Victor crossed his arms.
“Are you done with the performance?”
Sophia looked toward the calendar beside the kitchen.
March 18.
Nine months before the ferry terminal.
Her heart slammed against her ribs.
Victor continued.
“Isabella is at Cedar Point Medical Center because of you, and you’re lying here pretending to faint.”
Sophia slowly stood.
“What happened to Isabella?”
His face twisted in disbelief.
“You poisoned her.”
There it was.
The day everything had begun.
In her first life, Isabella had eaten food Sophia prepared, collapsed dramatically at lunch, and been rushed to the hospital. A physician who later turned out to have gambling debts had claimed Isabella was suffering catastrophic kidney failure.
Then Victor had discovered Sophia was supposedly a compatible donor.
He had demanded her kidney.
She remembered crying in the hospital hallway while Victor called her selfish.
She remembered eventually agreeing to surgery because she thought sacrificing part of herself might finally prove her love.
The procedure had been stopped only because another surgeon questioned Isabella’s laboratory results.
Sophia had spent months afterward apologizing for suspecting Isabella.
This time, she smiled.
Victor’s eyes narrowed.
“What’s funny?”
“You.”
“What?”
“I’m trying to remember when I became stupid enough to think you were worth losing an organ for.”
His face changed.
“Sophia.”
“Take me to the hospital.”
Victor gave a satisfied exhale, mistaking surrender for obedience.
“Good. At least you understand the seriousness of what you did.”
“I understand perfectly.”
At Cedar Point, Isabella lay dramatically beneath white blankets with an oxygen tube under her nose.
She looked fragile.
Innocent.
Beautiful.
Victor rushed to her bedside.
“How are you feeling?”
Isabella looked at him weakly.
“I’m scared.”
“I’m here.”
Then she looked beyond him.
Her eyes found Sophia.
For one tiny second, Isabella’s tears stopped.
Something cold passed through her expression.
Recognition.
Fear.
Not the fear of a sick woman.
The fear of a woman who had just realized the victim standing in the doorway was no longer the same person.
Sophia saw it.
And smiled.
“Get well soon.”
Isabella swallowed.
Victor glared.
“What is wrong with you?”
Sophia turned toward him.
“Nothing.”
She walked closer.
“I just remembered something.”
“What?”
“You once told me actions reveal people better than words.”
Victor frowned.
“And?”
Sophia glanced at Isabella.
“She’s terrified.”
“Yes.”
“But she isn't terrified of me.”
Isabella's face went pale.
Victor immediately stepped between them.
“You need to leave.”
Sophia smiled.
“I will.”
She turned toward the door.
Then stopped.
“Oh, Victor?”
“What?”
“You should check her laboratory report yourself.”
He laughed bitterly.
“I already did.”
“No.”
Sophia looked back.
“You trusted someone else.”
Then she walked away.
Outside the hospital, she called one number she had not contacted in three years.
“Grandpa?”
Silence.
Then an older voice answered.
“Sophia?”
She closed her eyes.
The sound nearly broke her.
“Hi.”
William Hastings inhaled sharply.
“Where are you?”
“Seattle.”
“Are you safe?”
“Yes.”
A long pause.
Then he asked the question she had been dreading.
“Did he hurt you?”
Sophia looked through the hospital glass.
Victor stood beside Isabella.
Protecting her.
Exactly as he had in the previous life.
“No,” Sophia said.
“He hasn't.”
William was silent.
“That's not what your voice sounds like.”
Sophia tightened her grip on the phone.
“Grandpa, I made a mistake.”
“What kind?”
“The kind that almost cost me everything.”
“Come home.”
She looked at the hospital.
Then toward the rain-dark street.
“No.”
William became alarmed.
“Why?”
“Because I don't want my old life back.”
“You walked away from us for him.”
“I know.”
“Then come home.”
Sophia smiled faintly.
“I want to build my own life.”
William was quiet.
“You have always been stubborn.”
“I learned from you.”
“You're coming back eventually.”
“No.”
She looked down.
Her wedding ring was still on her finger.
She slowly removed it.
“I’m coming back differently.”
That afternoon she returned to the house.
Victor was waiting.
He looked furious.
“You embarrassed me.”
Sophia dropped her handbag onto the table.
“No.”
“I defended you in there.”
“You defended Isabella.”
“She almost died.”
“No.”
Sophia looked him straight in the eyes.
“She almost performed.”
Victor’s hand slammed onto the table.
“You need help.”
She didn't flinch.
Three months ago, that sound would have made her cry.
Now it merely reminded her of something.
The old Sophia had loved him.
The new Sophia had information.
“Do you still love her?” she asked.
Victor stared.
“What kind of question is that?”
“A simple one.”
He hesitated.
Then said what he had once hidden.
“I never stopped.”
There it was.
The truth.
Sophia nodded.
“Good.”
Victor frowned.
“Good?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because now I know what to do.”
“What?”
She smiled.
“Nothing.”
He stared at her.
Sophia walked upstairs.
She entered the bedroom.
She opened the closet.
At the back sat an old black case Victor had never noticed.
Inside was her original identity.
Passport.
Trust documents.
Private banking credentials.
A secure phone.
And one silver key.
Her grandfather had given it to her the day before she left Hastings Holdings.
He had said:
If you ever need to remember who you are, open the box.
Sophia lifted the key.
Then whispered to herself:
“I remember.”
That night, she called her grandfather again.
“I'm ready.”
“For what?”
“To come back.”
William was silent.
Then:
“Your brothers will be furious.”
“Let them.”
“You're serious?”
“Yes.”
“What will you do about Victor?”
Sophia looked at the wedding ring on the table.
She picked it up.
Not to wear.
To remember.
“I won't divorce him yet.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to know exactly how much he is hiding.”
“And Isabella?”
Sophia smiled.
“I already know she's lying.”
“Proof?”
“Not yet.”
William sighed.
“That sounds dangerous.”
Sophia looked at herself in the mirror.
“I already died once.”
Her eyes hardened.
“I don't plan to make the same mistake twice.”
And across the city, Victor Grant sat beside Isabella's hospital bed, believing his wife was finally broken.
He had no idea that nine months before he would choose another woman over her life, Sophia Hastings had already begun choosing herself.
And this time, she wasn't going to beg for love.
May you like
She was going to uncover the truth.
Then she was going to make every person who betrayed her watch their perfect lives collapse.
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