The day I married Isabella, the boy who stole my life killed himself. Two years later, that death shattered us. She blamed me—the true heir—for Lucas Blackwood’s demise. I despised her for mourning the impostor who’d lived my life. For a decade, we were each other’s torment. Curses, hatred, a home choked with venom. It ended in an earthquake. As the world collapsed, she shielded me, her spine snapping under the wreckage. Dying, she whispered, "If I’d known he’d die, I’d never have brought you home. "Then, softer: "If we get another life… let me be your only family." I died in the aftershocks anyway. But when I woke, I was back—on the day she first took me to the Blackwoods. This time, she stopped me, trembling. "Aaron… the son they lost twenty years ago… it isn’t you." … Isabella blocked my path before the grand iron gates of the Blackwood estate, her face a mask of conflict and grim determination. I said nothing, my mind flashing with the phantom memory of steel and concrete crashing down, of her blood-soaked back, of the words she’d whispered against my ear. “If I had known he would die, I never would have brought you home.” So, this was her choice. Given a second chance, she chose to abandon me from the very beginning. Fine. The last life was a ten-year sentence in a marriage built on torment. She despised me, I resented her, and we tortured each other day and night until death was our only release. The thought of severing it all at the root… it was a relief, a weight lifting from my soul. I met her gaze and gave a calm, simple nod. “Okay.” A flicker of shock crossed Isabella’s face. The entire speech she’d clearly prepared died on her lips. “What did you say?” she asked, the question a knee-jerk reaction. “I said, I understand,” I repeated, my voice even. “If it was a mistake, then it’s over. Thanks for the ride, but I should head back to campus.” I turned to leave. Her hand shot out, grabbing my arm. “Aaron!” She cried out my name, a note of panic creeping into her voice. “What is this attitude? You’ve always wanted to find your family! Now I tell you it’s not them, and you just give up? Just like that?!” I looked back at her, a bitter laugh threatening to escape. She’d concocted this whole lie precisely so I would give up. Now that I was doing exactly what she wanted, she was unsatisfied. “What else did you expect?” I countered. “Unless you’re lying to me right now. Unless I am the real Blackwood heir.” The panic in her eyes flared, her grip on my arm tightening unconsciously. She looked away, hiding her expression. “This ends here. You are not to mention this again, and you are not to go anywhere near the Blackwood family.” “I get it.” I pulled my arm free, rubbing the red marks her fingers had left on my wrist. “I won’t bring it up. I won’t go near them. Are you satisfied now, Isabella?” She stared at my empty hand, a flicker of loss in her eyes, as if something precious had just slipped through her grasp. She had no idea. I was reborn, too. This time, I would not walk through those gates. I would not become the Blackwood heir. And I would never, ever be her husband. She wanted to protect her childhood friend, to keep his perfect world intact. And I was going to hand it to her on a silver platter. “I’m leaving.” Without another glance, I turned and walked toward the bus stop. Her voice, laced with frustration, chased after me. “Stop! I’ll drive you back.” Isabella didn’t take me back to my dorm. Instead, she drove straight to a luxury high-rise in the heart of the city. I watched the streetlights blur past the window, a cold sense of recognition washing over me. In our previous life, this was our home after we married. It held our tenderest moments and bore witness to our slow, agonizing descent into a couple consumed by hatred. The car glided to a stop. She unbuckled her seatbelt and turned to me. In the dim light of the parking garage, her expression was unreadable, but her tone was softer now, no longer as sharp as it had been at the estate gates. “Get out. We need to talk.” I followed her into the apartment. The decor was just as I remembered—a sleek, minimalist design in cool tones, much like her: elegant and distant. Only this time, I felt none of the heart-fluttering affection I once had. She tossed me a bottle of water from the fridge, then walked to the floor-to-ceiling windows and lit a slender cigarette. The pale smoke swirled around her, a misty veil separating us. “Aaron, I know you’re upset.” Her voice, muffled by the smoke, was heavy. “I didn't handle the situation with your family well. But Lucas… his mental state is fragile. He can’t handle any more shocks.” Always Lucas. I looked down, twisting the cap off the bottle and taking a long swallow. The cold water slid down my throat but did nothing to quell the bitter tide rising in my chest. She’d said the same thing in our last life. She’d told me Lucas had a self-destructive streak, that his mind was a fragile thing, and that I needed to be gentle with him after I was welcomed into the family. And I’d listened. I’d let him have her undivided attention. I’d met his childish provocations with retreat and silence. And in return, he’d used his own suicide to sentence our marriage to a decade of hard time. Seeing my silence, Isabella must have assumed I was still sulking over my lost family. She sighed and stubbed out her cigarette. She walked over to me, tilting her head up slightly to look at me on the sofa, her eyes soft with a placating light. “Don’t be angry with me, okay?” Her voice was a velvet murmur as she reached out, her hand covering mine where it rested on the water bottle. “I admit, I messed up today. I got your hopes up for nothing.” “Whatever you want as compensation, just name it. If it’s in my power to give, it’s yours.” She paused, her tone growing earnest. “But the Blackwoods… let’s just forget about them for now, alright?” She was humbling herself, her love for me practically spilling from her eyes. I could see it clearly—she was terrified I would be angry, terrified I would leave her. But that love was conditional. It required the sacrifice of who I was. I met her gaze and felt a sudden, weary urge to laugh. “There’s nothing I want.” I calmly pulled my hand from under hers. The light in her eyes dimmed for a second. “Don’t worry. Even if the Blackwoods begged me to come back, rolling out a red carpet paved with their fortune, I wouldn’t give them a second look.” I added, “And you don’t need to apologize. You don’t owe me anything. In fact, let’s just end this between us.” Isabella’s brow furrowed, and she straightened up abruptly, her expression icing over. “End it? Aaron, are you trying to punish me? Because I wouldn’t let you join the Blackwoods, you’re trying to blackmail me?” She leaned over me, planting her hands on the sofa on either side of my body, trapping me in the scent of her perfume and lingering smoke. “I only told you not to go back to them! I never said I wanted to break up! We can be just like we were before. No—I’ll be even better to you than before!” I looked at her, overcome with a profound exhaustion. She thought that by stripping away my identity as the "true Blackwood heir," we could go back to the beginning, that our love could continue unscathed. She didn't understand. The root of our tragedy was never about whether I returned to the Blackwoods or not. “Isabella,” I said, gently pushing her away as I stood, creating a much-needed space between us. “I’m tired. I want to go back.” Without looking at her again, I walked to the door. This time, she didn’t try to stop me. … In the days that followed, I threw myself into preparing my applications to study abroad. Soon enough, an offer letter arrived from a university overseas. My departure was set for next month. The day before I was due to leave, two men in black suits intercepted me as I was leaving the library. “Mr. Sterling, Ms. Vance would like to see you.” I was forced into a car that sped through the city, finally stopping at a skyscraper that overlooked the entire riverfront. “Ms. Vance is busy. Please wait here.” A bodyguard escorted me into a glass-walled room before turning, leaving, and locking the door behind him. The room offered a stunning panoramic view, its main wall a single, massive pane of glass. Directly across from me, in the sky garden restaurant on the adjacent rooftop, a lavish birthday party was in full swing. The guest of honor was Lucas Blackwood. Dressed in an expensive suit, he was the center of attention, surrounded by a crowd of admirers. And standing right beside him, adjusting his bow tie and gazing at him with undisguised tenderness, was Isabella. I watched as she took Lucas’s hand for the first dance. They spun, drew close, and whispered to each other, looking for all the world like a perfectly matched couple. The guests applauded, their faces beaming with approval. A laugh, sharp and humorless, escaped me. What a fool I’d been in my past life. To throw away my entire existence for a woman who never truly loved me—was it worth it? I closed my eyes, trying to block out the searing image. But another memory forced its way in: Isabella’s mangled face during the earthquake, the trembling of her spine as she shielded me. She hated me, but she had also saved me. That debt was a giant, invisible net, trapping me, leaving me unable to move. I don’t know how long I sat there, but eventually, the party began to wind down. The door behind me creaked open. I turned. Lucas stood in the doorway. A triumphant smirk played on his lips as he sauntered toward me. “Aaron,” he began, standing over me, looking down his nose. “How does it feel? Watching the woman you love throw a party like this for me.” It clicked. The bodyguards weren’t sent by Isabella. They were his. He wanted to crush any hope I had left. He didn't need to bother. This time around, I felt nothing for her. I remained silent, my gaze cold and steady. My lack of reaction seemed to infuriate him, his smile twisting into a grotesque sneer. “You think staying silent makes you noble? Let me tell you something. What isn’t yours, you will never have!” He leaned in close, his voice a venomous hiss. “Do you know? If you hadn’t shown up, Isabella and I would have been engaged by now! You ruined everything!” “Are you done?” I asked coolly. “If you are, please let me leave.” My detached attitude made him tremble with rage. Suddenly, he pulled a dagger from his jacket pocket, its blade glinting menacingly in the light. My heart seized. “What are you doing?” “Doing?” Lucas sneered, a crazed look in his eyes. “I’m going to show Isabella what you’ve driven me to! I’m going to make her see that as long as you exist, I’ll never know a moment of peace!” Before I could react, he raised the dagger and dragged it across his own wrist. He looked at me, a twisted smile on his face, and then screamed at the top of his lungs. “Please, just leave me alone! I’ll give you anything, why are you trying to kill me?!” The sound of frantic footsteps echoed from outside. Isabella burst in first, pulling a whimpering Lucas into her arms, her face a storm of fury. Lucas sagged against her, his face pale, and pointed a trembling finger at me. “Isabella… he told me he was the real Blackwood son… that I don’t deserve any of this… He told me I should just die…” Isabella’s head snapped up. Her eyes, when they met mine, were blazing with a terrifying fury. “Aaron,” she bit out, her voice dangerously low. “Did I not warn you to behave yourself?” “Today is Lucas’s birthday. It was supposed to be his happiest day of the year, and you’ve completely destroyed it!” I stared at her, my heart sinking inch by inch into an icy abyss. She had forgotten. Today was my birthday, too. Lucas and I were born on the same day, in the same month, of the same year. One of us was born to the heavens, the other, to the dirt. She immediately ordered her bodyguards to restrain me. Then, she threw a military-grade combat knife onto the floor in front of me. Her words were merciless. “For every drop of blood he’s lost, you’ll give back double.” I stared at her in disbelief. “Isabella, are you insane?!” I began to struggle violently, but she gave her men a curt nod. A searing pain shot up my arm as the blade bit into my flesh. Warm blood gushed out. I grunted, cold sweat beading on my forehead as I bit down hard on my lip, the coppery taste of blood flooding my mouth. A second cut, then a third… I lost count of the wounds, the pain dissolving into a dull, throbbing numbness. The world started to blur at the edges. I looked at Isabella’s cold, impassive face, at the faint, triumphant smirk on Lucas’s lips as he hid in her arms. My heart, what was left of it, died completely. “Enough.” Isabella finally spoke, stopping the bodyguard. “Take him to a hospital when you’re done.” With that, she swept Lucas into her arms and strode out of the room without a backward glance. I collapsed into a pool of my own blood, my consciousness fading. Just before I blacked out, I thought I saw the earthquake again. This time, Isabella wasn’t shielding me. She was just standing off to the side, watching coldly as the rubble swallowed me whole, her eyes devoid of any emotion. Isabella, I thought. The life I owed you… we’re even now. When I next opened my eyes, the sterile scent of antiseptic filled my nostrils. Isabella was sitting by my bed. Seeing me awake, her eyes lit up. “I’m sorry,” she said suddenly. I froze. “Last night… I was too harsh.” She looked down, her voice laced with regret. “I was so angry, I lost control. I…” “And?” I cut her off, my voice flat. “Are you saying you regret it?” Her head shot up, her lips parting as if to say something, but all that came out was a sigh. “Aaron, don’t talk to me like that.” Her voice softened. “I know you hate me, but Lucas… he almost died.” “You don’t have to apologize, Isabella,” I said, meeting her eyes. “Just consider us even now.” “Even?” She frowned, not understanding. “Yes.” A bitter laugh escaped my lips. “In our past life, you saved me in that earthquake. This time… I’ve paid you back with my own blood. We’re square.” The words hung in the sterile air. The sound of her chair clattering to the floor was deafening as she shot to her feet. Her lips trembled, her pupils constricting in utter shock.
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