Chapter 3

Chloe' s eyes blazed with a fresh wave of fury at my defiance. She saw the scratch on my face, the blood, and my unblinking stare, and it seemed to push her over the edge. Her chest heaved, and for a moment, I thought she would hit me again. Instead, a cruel, calculating look replaced her rage.

"You think you' re so smart, don' t you?" she hissed. She looked at the bodyguard holding my right arm. "Give me his phone."

The man immediately reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone, handing it to her. Chloe' s fingers flew across the screen, her expression twisting into a victorious smirk as she found what she was looking for: Sarah' s contact number. My wife.

"Let' s see how tough you are when your precious little wife finds out what a pathetic excuse for a man she married," Chloe sneered.

Panic, cold and sharp, tried to grip me. Sarah. In my last life, Chloe' s call had been the first crack in the foundation of our marriage, a crack that eventually split it wide open. I struggled against the guards' grip, a guttural sound of protest rising in my throat.

"Don' t you dare," I growled, my voice muffled as the second bodyguard clamped a hand over my mouth.

Chloe ignored me, pressing the call button. She put the phone on speaker, filling the ruined apartment with the sound of it ringing. My heart pounded with each ring. Sarah was at work, a quiet library. This call would blindside her.

"Hello?" Sarah' s voice was soft, warm. It was the sound of home, a sound that was about to be violated.

"Hi, is this Sarah Johnson?" Chloe asked, her voice dripping with fake politeness.

"Yes, this is she. Who' s calling?"

"My name is Chloe Davis. I' m an old friend of Ethan' s," she said, her eyes locked on mine, enjoying my silent, helpless rage. "I' m so sorry to bother you at work, but I' m very worried about him. We think he might be in some trouble."

"Trouble?" Sarah' s voice was laced with concern. "What kind of trouble? Is he okay?"

The bodyguard' s hand was slick with sweat against my lips. I fought against it, trying to scream, to warn her, but the man was a wall of muscle.

"Well, that' s the thing," Chloe continued, her tone shifting to one of grave disappointment. "My husband, Liam, Ethan' s cousin, has gone missing. We have reason to believe Ethan is hiding him. On top of that... and I truly hate to be the one to tell you this... we' ve discovered Ethan has a very serious gambling problem. He owes some very dangerous people a lot of money."

"Gambling?" Sarah' s confusion was audible. "No, that can' t be right. Ethan doesn' t gamble."

"Oh, you poor, naive thing," Chloe said, her voice now dripping with condescension and pity. She dropped the friendly pretense entirely. "Did you really think you knew him? A man like Ethan, from a family like his... did you really think he' d settle for a simple little librarian like you? He' s been lying to you from the start."

The cruelty of her words was astounding. She wasn' t just lying; she was systematically trying to destroy Sarah' s perception of me, of our life together. She was attacking Sarah' s self-worth, painting her as a fool.

"He' s been cheating on you, Sarah," Chloe said, delivering the final, venomous blow. "He' s been with other women. That' s where the money is going. Not just gambling."

There was a long, painful silence on the other end of the line. I could picture Sarah standing in the quiet stacks of the library, the world falling out from under her. I could feel her shock, her hurt, her confusion. My helplessness turned into a white-hot fury.

When Sarah finally spoke, her voice was barely a whisper. "Ethan...?"

Chloe just laughed, a short, ugly sound. "He can' t come to the phone right now. He' s a little... tied up."

She hung up.

She tossed the phone onto the couch and turned back to me, a triumphant look on her face. The bodyguard finally removed his hand from my mouth. I gasped for air, the rage inside me so immense it felt like it would tear me apart.

"You' re going to regret this, Chloe," I said, my voice low and shaking with controlled anger. "What you just did... forcible entry, assault, slander... that' s a crime."

She just scoffed. "Crime? I have the best lawyers in the country. You have nothing. You are nothing."

But I wasn't nothing. I was a man with nothing left to lose, and I had a memory of the future. She thought she was winning, but she was just walking deeper into the trap I was setting.