Chapter 3

The narrative of my end is a neat, tragic story. But it wasn't my end. Not really.

When the flames consumed my body, something strange happened. My soul, which had been hovering, detached and lost, was not extinguished. It was... freed. I was no longer Gabi Jenkins, the Silvan woman. I was just a consciousness, an observer, tethered to the man who had destroyed me.

I watched him. I watched him scream as the fire turned my physical form to ash. I watched my brother, Andrew, punch him until his knuckles were bloody and Ethan's face was a ruin. Ethan didn't fight back. He just knelt there, taking the beating, his eyes fixed on the smoldering pyre.

I felt nothing. Not pity, not satisfaction. Just a vast, hollow emptiness.

I followed Andrew as he collected my ashes. I floated beside him as he carried the small, heavy box back through the forest, back to the Heartwood. He buried them at the base of the oldest tree, its branches reaching for the sky like ancient arms. My people gathered, their faces etched with sorrow. As the last handful of dirt covered the box, I felt a final, gentle pull, a sense of peace. I could have let go then. I could have dissolved into the forest, into the lifeblood of my home.

But I didn't. I was drawn back. Back to him.

I found Ethan in the ruins of his mansion. He was living in the one section that had partially survived the fire-the cellar where I had died. He was a ghost, just like me. He didn't speak. He didn't eat. He just sat on the cold concrete floor, staring at the spot where my body had lain.

Days turned into a week. He was wasting away. His men, the ones who had tortured me, tried to talk to him.

"Boss, you gotta eat something."

"Boss, the board is asking what the next move is."

He ignored them. His world had shrunk to the four damp walls of that cellar and the memory of my last words. "I hate you."

He would whisper it to himself. "She hates me."

Then, one day, he stood up. He walked out of the cellar and into the daylight, blinking like a creature that hadn't seen the sun in years. He went to his office, a temporary trailer set up amidst the logging equipment.

He found the file on Nikki Lester. He read every line. He cross-referenced shipping manifests, expense reports, internal communications. He was methodical, his grief channeled into a cold, sharp focus. He was the ruthless corporate tool again, but this time, his target was the corporation itself.

He found the proof. The purchase order for the specific, untraceable poison. The falsified reports from the day he was "rescued." The network of shell companies Nikki used to funnel money and hide her tracks. It was all there. She hadn't just been jealous; she had been planning a corporate takeover, and I was just collateral damage in her path to power.

He printed everything. He made copies. He sent encrypted files to journalists he had once protested against.

Then he went after Nikki.

She had vanished after the fire. The official story was that she was recovering from the trauma. Ethan knew better. He used the corporation's own vast surveillance network to track her. He found her holed up in a luxury safe house in another country, waiting for the dust to settle before she claimed her new position at the top of the company.

He didn't go himself. He made a call. An old contact from his activist days, a man who specialized in making people disappear.

"I have a job for you," Ethan said, his voice devoid of emotion. "And a lot of money."

I watched, a silent specter, as he dismantled the life he had built. He was a machine of vengeance. There was no pleasure in it for him. It was just a task that needed to be completed. A debt that had to be paid.