"Boss, we're surrounded—what should we do?" Ben's voice trembled through the phone, high with panic.
"The men are all dead. I've been trying to reach the police, but there's no cell connection," he added, voice cracking.
Adrian Cole didn't flinch. He didn't shout or curse or even frown. Instead, he calmly placed one hand behind his back, lifted a half-filled glass of beer, and took a slow sip. It looked like a man savoring his final taste of life—accepting his end long before it arrived.
"Boss??" Ben's voice crackled again, desperate.
Adrian ended the call and tossed the phone aside. He walked to the balcony railing, his gaze steady, expression unreadable. Seven floors up, the ground looked distant. All that filled his chest was regret. And the only way to silence it… was to fall.
He climbed over the rail, spread his arms, and jumped.
A faint smile touched his lips as the wind tore past him. Maybe this was justice. Maybe this was where a man like him truly belonged—hell.
That night, the world erupted with headlines.
"Billionaire Adrian Cole Commits Suicide in Mexico."
Everyone asked the same question:
Why would a man with everything choose to die?
No one had the answer.
Adrian felt himself falling, endlessly. Darkness swallowed him whole, and faint voices echoed from every side. At first, muffled—then sharper, closer, familiar.
"I hope you never wake up!"
The voice was unmistakable. Feminine. Bitter. Broken.
Adrian's heart clenched. He hadn't heard that voice in years, but he'd never forgotten it—how every word from her mouth carried both warmth and pain. He'd given her both, though mostly the latter.
"I hope you die in your sleep, you bastard! That way my daughter and I can finally be happy."
Adrian's chest tightened. He opened his eyes—only to find her standing before him.
Maria.
Younger. Beautiful. Alive. Maybe twenty-three, twenty-four.
"I've prepared dinner," she said coldly, before turning away.
He blinked, dazed, sitting upright. The air smelled of soap and stew. His eyes scanned the small, modest living room—and froze.
This was their house. The one he'd shared with Maria and their four-year-old daughter, Jenna.
His gaze landed on a battered silver Motorola RAZR resting on the small brown table. He grabbed it, flipped it open, and checked the screen.
2:19 PM. July 30, 2006.
A chill ran down his spine. He wasn't hallucinating. He was back.
Adrian set the phone down slowly and stared at Lilia, who was already seated at the dining table, eating in silence. Emotion twisted inside him—guilt, love, longing—all fighting for space in his chest.
He'd been given a second chance. A chance to rectify his mistakes. A chance to be with them and this time, he wouldn't waste it.
Adrian joined her at the table. "Maria," he said softly.
She looked up, wary.
"I want to take a loan from the local bank," he said.
Instantly, her eyes narrowed. Anger flared. Her hand slammed the table. "Another loan?!" she shouted. "To spend it all drinking and gambling with your friends again?"
She hurled a steel spoon at him. Adrian jerked aside just in time—the metal clattered against the wall behind him.
"Wait, Maria—calm down! It's not for that!"
He tried to explain, but she wasn't listening. She'd heard the same words before.
This time, though, Adrian meant it. He wasn't the same man. He remembered everything that would happen—the mistakes, the pain, the loss. He would use that knowledge to rewrite their story, protect them, and atone for the past. Even if it cost him his life.
"You haven't even paid the last loans you took," Maria snapped, trembling with fury. "Your recklessness is going to ruin us, Adrian! One day it'll get us all killed!"
The words struck him like a blade.
She didn't mean it literally—but Adrian knew better. She was right.
His palms clenched. Cold sweat trickled down his temple as memories flooded back—their last day alive.
Maria and Adrian had once been inseparable, defying her wealthy family's disapproval to marry for love. But after a few short years, love had curdled into something bitter.
He'd become an angry, broken man—drunk more often than sober, lashing out at the wife and child who had once been his reason to live.
And then came the night he lost them.
He'd borrowed from the wrong men—dangerous men, marked with a coiled dragon tattoo around their necks. When they came to collect, Adrian wasn't home. He'd been drinking. Again.
He saw their cars from down the street and ran. He ran, like a coward, leaving Maria and Jenna behind.
Six hours later, he returned to find only silence.
Maria lay naked on the cold floor, a bullet through her heart and cum staining her body. Jenna's tiny hands were curled beside her mother's face, her lips tinged blue.
They had killed them both.
The white walls Maria used to scrub clean every morning were splattered red.
That night, Adrian had knelt in their blood, holding their bodies and begging for a miracle that would never come.
Even after becoming the richest man in the country, he could never sleep more than thirty minutes at a time. The past hunted him. Their faces haunted him.
And now—he was here again. In 2006. With a chance to change everything.
"Adrian," Lilia's voice called softly, her hand touching his back.
He turned to her, eyes wet.
This time, he swore, he wouldn't fail them again.