Chapter 1: The Echo and the Choice
The smell of smoke was the first thing to fade.
It was replaced by the crisp, clean scent of linen starch and the faint, citrusy note of floor polish. The agonizing, all-consuming heat that had blistered my skin and melted my lungs receded, leaving behind the cool, still air of a well-ventilated hallway.
My body shuddered, a full-body spasm that had nothing to do with the temperature and everything to do with the phantom agony still screaming along every nerve ending. I could still hear them. Their tiny, desperate voices shredding the roar of the inferno.
"Mommy!"
"It hurts! Mommy, make it stop!"
My knees buckled. My hand flew out, slapping against the smooth, polished mahogany of the wall to steady myself. The solidity of it was a shock. Real. Tangible. The basement walls had been cold, rough stone.
"Dr. Vance! Hurry!"
The voice was a boom in my ears, familiar and laced with a panic I now knew was selective. Levi, the family butler. His face, etched with genuine concern, swam into my blurry vision. He wasn't looking at the charred corpse of the woman he'd served for a decade. He was looking at me in my simple, professional blouse and slacks, my doctor's coat still draped over my arm.
"Mr. Kaelen is getting worse!" Levi urged, his hand hovering near my elbow as if to guide me forward. "The fever is spiking, and he's… he's not himself."
Dr. Vance.
No one had called me that since I'd married Kaelen Sullivan. Since I'd become Mrs. Sullivan, a title that felt less like an honor and more like a brand. A ownership mark for a man who considered me his greatest mistake.
My heart was a wild, frantic drum against my ribs, a chaotic beat synced with the twins' fading screams in my memory. I forced a breath into my paralyzed lungs, the air tasting impossibly clean, devoid of ash.
This was the hallway outside the family wing of the Sullivan estate. The opulent, tasteful art on the walls, the soft glow of the crystal sconces—it was all exactly as it had been that night.
That night.
Levi sighed, wringing his hands slightly. "It's supposed to be his birthday. Heaven knows how this happened…"
The words were a perfect echo. A trigger. The final piece of the impossible puzzle snapped into place.
I wasn't dying. I was back.
A coldness, sharp and clear and absolute, washed through me, dousing the last of the phantom flames. The grief and terror that had defined my last moments didn't vanish; they were flash-frozen, compressed into a diamond-hard core of purpose deep in my chest. Lysander. Lyra. Their faces, not contorted in fear, but laughing in the sunlight, swam before my eyes. I had held them as they died. I had failed them.
I would not fail them again.
I stopped in my tracks, my heels clicking sharply on the marble floor. Levi almost walked into me.
"Dr. Vance?"
I turned toward him. The movement felt stiff, my body not quite my own yet. I could see the door to Kaelen's room at the end of the hall. In my past life, the instant I had opened that door, a man possessed by chemical madness and primal need had leaped on me. Levi had been right outside, but he had completely ignored my cries, my struggles, dismissing them as part of the… treatment. That single night of violence had forged the chains of my misery.
"Get Liana Croft," I said, my voice surprisingly steady, devoid of the warmth I'd always used with the staff.
Levi blinked, stunned. "But, Doctor— Miss Croft is at the gala downtown. She's not scheduled to—"
"Get Liana Croft," I repeated, my tone blunt, leaving no room for argument. I injected a note of medical urgency, a lie that tasted like salvation. "Or Kaelen might die. Tell her he's calling for her. That he needs her."
I watched the conflict play out on his face—protocol versus my professional order. The mention of potential death decided it. He gave a curt nod and hurried away, his footsteps echoing down the grand staircase.
Alone in the hallway, I clutched my chest, feeling the frantic pounding beneath my palm. It was done. I had set them on their path. Kaelen and his one true love. Let her bear the weight of his addiction, his tempers, his obsessive, suffocating love. I was free.
I turned to leave, to walk away from the Sullivan mansion and never look back.
But another memory, sharp and intrusive, surfaced. The party had been huge. Kaelen's birthday. The talk of the city. And it wasn't just the son who had indulged too much.
Silas Sullivan.
Kaelen's father. The patriarch. The real power.
In the chaotic aftermath of my own personal earthquake with Kaelen, I'd paid no attention to the rumors that Silas had also fallen ill and retired to his study. The Sullivans always had problems producing heirs. Kaelen himself was a miracle of modern science, the sole IVF success that secured the bloodline. His position was unassailable.
But what if it wasn't?
The thought was a lightning strike, terrifying and illuminating.
What if he wasn't the only heir?
My feet, which had been pointed toward the staircase and freedom, pivoted. I found myself walking not away from the heart of the mansion, but deeper into it. Toward the west wing. Toward Silas's private study.
The corridor here was quieter, more subdued. The air felt heavier. My heart was no longer pounding with panic, but with a cold, calculating rhythm. This was no longer about escape. It was about annihilation. It was about building an unassailable fortress of my own, right at the heart of the family that had destroyed me.
I stopped before a heavy oak door, darkened with age and importance. I didn't knock. I turned the cold, brass handle and pushed.
The study was a room of dark elegance, smelling of old books, fine whiskey, and rich leather. And it was hot. The fireplace across the room blazed, casting flickering, demonic shadows on the walls.
He was there.
Silas Sullivan wasn't the silvered, distant figurehead I vaguely remembered from family events. Reborn, my perspective had shifted. The man slumped in the large, cognac-colored leather armchair wasn't old. He was in his early forties, in the absolute prime of his life. His black hair, usually impeccably styled, was disheveled, a dark lock falling across his furrowed brow. His shirt, a costly Egyptian cotton, was unbuttoned at the throat, the sleeves rolled up to reveal strong, corded forearms. His necktie was pulled loose and dangled from his collar like a silken noose.
His face—all sharp, aristocratic planes and a jawline that could cut glass—was flushed with a fever that wasn't entirely from the fire. This was the same drug, the same vulnerability, but on a completely different creature. This wasn't a rabid beast; this was a powerful predator, cornered and dangerously unstable.
His eyes, a striking, stormy grey I'd never noticed before, cracked open. They were glazed with pain and confusion, but they focused on me with an unnerving intensity. He didn't see a woman. He didn't see a doctor. He saw salvation.
A low, guttural sound escaped his throat. "You…"
Before I could speak, could even form a plan, he moved. With a speed that belied his condition, his hand shot out. His fingers, long and strong, wrapped around my wrist like an iron manacle. He was impossibly strong, pulling me off balance.
I stumbled forward, falling toward him. A cry of protest died in my throat as I caught myself, my free hand landing on the solid muscle of his chest. I could feel the frantic, heated beat of his heart through the fine fabric of his shirt.
His other hand came up, cupping the back of my neck, his thumb brushing my jaw. His gaze burned into me, seeing through the doctor, through the woman, seeing the cold, new-born resolve in my soul.
"Don't," he breathed, his voice a raw, rasping thing that vibrated through me. "Don't go."
The heat of him, the sheer masculine power barely held in check, was overwhelming. The memory of the fire screamed in my head, a warning. But beneath it was the memory of my children's laughter. Their future. My vengeance.
This was the crossroads.
I could fight. I could try to pry myself from the grip of a man who was used to owning everything he touched.
Or I could make a choice.
Taking a shuddering breath, I let the last of my resistance drain away. I stopped pulling against him. I met his stormy, desperate gaze, and I gave him a single, slow nod.
It was not a surrender. It was a deal with the devil, sealed not with a signature, but with a touch.
And I intended to be the one writing the terms.