Chapter 1

The last thing I remembered was the grinding sound of machinery, a sound that had been the soundtrack to my life for six years in our small town, but here, in the city, it was a death knell.

My daughter, Lily, and my son, Tom, had been so excited. They were finally going to see their father' s big, successful factory.

Sarah, my husband's sister-in-law, had her arm around my shoulder, her voice a sweet poison in my ear.

"They've missed Michael so much, Ava. Let them go see him. He's just inside."

I hesitated, a flicker of unease I couldn't explain, but the pleading in my children's eyes won. They hadn't seen their father, Michael, in months. They were just kids, innocent and full of hope. They still believed he had moved to the city to build a better life for all of us.

They didn't know the truth. They didn't know he had left me, his wife, to move in with Sarah, the widow of his own brother. They didn't know that he took every cent of the severance pay from our town's factory closure, money that was supposed to be ours, and used it to build this new life with her and her two children.

I watched Lily and Tom run ahead, their small figures disappearing through the factory's massive doorway.

Then I saw Sarah's smile, a real smile this time, not the fake one she had been wearing all day. It was sharp and cold. She gave a little push, not to me, but to a large, unsecured metal cart near the edge of the platform we were on.

It was all so fast. The cart rolled, hitting a lever. A klaxon blared. And then, a scream. Two screams, cut short by a sickening crunch and a spray of red against the far wall.

My world ended.

I must have run, I must have screamed, but all I remember next is Michael standing over me. The factory was silent now. Sarah was clinging to his arm, weeping theatrically.

"Michael," I sobbed, my voice raw, "Lily... Tom..."

He looked down at me, his face not filled with grief, but with annoyance. A deep, chilling irritation.

"Well, that's that, then," he said, his voice flat. "Saves me the trouble and expense of a divorce, I guess."

He looked over at the machinery, a flicker of something unreadable in his eyes.

"They were just baggage anyway, Ava. Holding me back."

The words didn't just break my heart, they annihilated my soul. The shock and the grief were a physical force, a giant hand squeezing my chest until I couldn't breathe. The world turned gray and then black.

I died on that cold, greasy factory floor, with my husband's final, cruel words echoing in the darkness.

And then, I gasped.

My eyes flew open. I wasn' t on a factory floor. I was in my own cramped bedroom in our small-town apartment. The air was stale, thick with the smell of dust and despair. Sunlight, weak and gray, filtered through the grimy window.

A calendar was tacked to the wall. The date was circled in red pen. It was the day the town's factory was closing for good. The day my first life truly began to unravel.

My heart hammered against my ribs. I scrambled out of bed and burst into the living room.

There, on the frayed rug, sat Lily and Tom. They were playing with worn-out wooden blocks, their heads bent together, their soft hair catching the morning light. They were alive. They were whole.

"Mommy?" Lily looked up, her big brown eyes filled with concern. "Are you okay?"

Tears streamed down my face, hot and unstoppable. I fell to my knees and wrapped them in my arms, burying my face in their hair, breathing in their scent. They were real. They were here.

It wasn't a dream. I was back.

The memory of their deaths, of Michael's words, was burned into my mind, as real as the children I now held in my arms.

The grief was still there, a hot knot of agony in my gut. But something else was there now, too. Something cold and hard and sharp.

Revenge.

I held my children tight, a vow forming in the ruins of my soul.

Michael. Sarah. You took everything from me. You murdered my children and celebrated my pain.

This time, you will pay. You will lose everything. I will tear down your world, piece by piece, and I will make you feel every ounce of the agony you gave me.

This was not a second chance at happiness.

It was a second chance at justice.