Chapter 1

The blue and red lights flashed across my face, blinding me. The wail of the siren was a sharp, ugly sound against the quiet Nashville night.

"Jennifer, tell them what you told me," Ethan' s voice was calm, but it was a calm that made the hairs on my arms stand up.

I stared at him, my husband. His face was a mask of concern, but his eyes were cold, completely empty of the man I knew.

A police officer knelt beside me, his notepad out. "Ma'am, your husband said you were driving?"

My head was spinning. The mangled front of the vintage Ford Mustang, a gift from my biological parents, was a nightmare in the headlights. A few yards away, a white sheet covered something on the road.

"No," I whispered, my voice raw. "I wasn't driving. Sabrina was."

Ethan stepped forward, placing a comforting hand on the officer's shoulder. "Officer, my wife is in shock. She's pregnant, you see. She gets... confused."

He looked back at me, and in that split second, I saw it. A flicker of something ancient and hateful in his eyes. It was a look I had seen before, but not in this life.

My breath caught in my throat. He remembered. He remembered everything.

The officer' s face hardened with suspicion. "Mr. Lester, you said she confessed to you, that she was trying to frame a Miss Sabrina Chavez out of jealousy."

"I know it's hard to believe," Ethan said, his voice full of fake sorrow. "She's just so upset that Sabrina got the life she thinks she deserved. The family, the money... she can't handle it."

He was twisting everything. Using my own pain, my own complicated history, as a weapon against me.

I remembered the fire. The smell of gasoline, the heat on my skin. I remembered Ethan' s face, illuminated by the flames, as he told me it was my fault Sabrina was dead. My fault for coming back into the Clarks' lives. My fault for existing. He had drugged me, held me down as our house burned, whispering how he would make it right in the next life.

And now, here we were. The next life. And he was making it right, for Sabrina.

"Ethan, no," I begged, the words tearing from my throat. "You gave me an alibi last time. You said you were with me."

The officer looked from me to Ethan, confused. "Last time?"

Ethan just shook his head sadly. "See? She's not making any sense. The stress... it's too much for her."

He was painting me as a crazy, jealous woman. And in this new timeline, he wasn't my protector. He was my executioner. The stakes weren't just my freedom anymore. They were my life, and the life of my unborn child. He had killed me once before. He wouldn't hesitate to do it again, just differently this time.