~Meanwhile~
The drive through the city streets was a blur for Georgia.
Rain pelted her windshield as tears blurred her vision after her phone call with Arlo.
Her hands shook on the steering wheel as she replayed the phone conversation over and over again.
The absolute emptiness in Arlo's voice. The casual way he'd threatened her life. The reminder that she was just an orphan nobody wanted.
She'd known he was capable of coldness. She'd lived with his emotional abuse for three years in her previous life. But she'd never truly understood the depths of his cruelty until her death.
The way he'd spoken to her like she was nothing. Less than nothing. Something to be erased.
"You're just an orphan. Nobody wanted you then, and nobody wants you now." His harsh words echoed in her mind.
But that wasn't entirely true, was it?
Georgia's grip tightened on the steering wheel as a memory from her previous life surfaced. One of the last conversations she'd had before her death. About her brothers.
What if it was true?
What if she really did have four brothers somewhere in the world? Brothers who didn't know she existed. Brothers who might have wanted her, might have loved her, if only they'd known about her.
The thought had haunted her dying moments in that previous timeline.
The possibility that she'd spent her entire life believing she was unwanted when somewhere, she had family. Real family. Not the Wellingtons who'd tolerated her presence. Not the orphanage that had raised her out of duty. But blood relatives who might have actually cared.
In this new timeline, finding them had become one of her goals. Not just surviving. Not just escaping Arlo. But discovering the truth about her origins. Finding her brothers, if they truly existed. Learning why she'd been abandoned at St. Mary's as an infant.
And there was something else she needed to find out.
The identity of the man from last night.
Georgia's hand unconsciously moved to her flat stomach, remembering the son she'd carried in her previous life. The child who'd been her only source of joy in those final months before her death.
The hotel security footage would mysteriously have been corrupted if this was truly a ploy.
What if someone had switched rooms?
What if in her drugged, desperate state, she'd stumbled into the wrong bed?
It would explain so much. Why Arlo had been so genuinely shocked at first when she'd announced her pregnancy in her past life. Why he'd demanded a paternity test that he'd then mysteriously never followed through on.
In her previous life, she'd died before she could investigate. Before she could demand answers or find the truth.
But in this timeline, she had a chance.
She would find her four brothers, if they existed. She would find who her son's real father was. She would uncover all the secrets that had been kept from her.
Because she wasn't just fighting for survival anymore. She was fighting for the truth. For identity. For the family she'd never known she might have.
The intersection ahead glowed red through the storm.
Georgia's foot moved toward the brake pedal as her mind planned her next move.
She'd go to a hotel tonight. Somewhere safe and anonymous. Tomorrow she'd find a lawyer. Someone who specialized in high-profile divorces.
Right, she didn't have a lawyer. She was only bluffing just now.
And then she'd hire a private investigator.
Someone who could dig into her past, find out the truth about her brothers and the identity of the man from last night.
She had so much to do. So much to fight for.
Georgia was still lost in her thoughts when a truck suddenly spiraled out of control and charged toward her.
Her foot hit the brake pedal, but nothing happened.
The truck continued forward, hydroplaning slightly on the wet asphalt and growing closer with terrifying speed.
Georgia's heart stopped.
She pumped the brake frantically yet nothing seemed to work.
The impact was explosive.
A sound like the world ending. Like every nightmare Georgia had ever had manifesting in physical form.
The force of the impact sent her car spinning through the air as if it weighed nothing. As if the laws of physics had decided to demonstrate exactly how fragile human life really was.
Metal screamed against asphalt in a symphony of destruction.
Glass exploded into thousands of tiny shards, cutting her face and arms as the car flipped through the air.
Each rotation felt like an eternity. Time stretched and distorted until Georgia couldn't tell if seconds or hours were passing as the steering wheel slammed into her chest, sending her head whipping forward and back.
The seatbelt cut into her shoulder while the airbag deployed with a force that felt like being punched.
Then the car slammed into the concrete barrier with a final, devastating impact that seemed to shake the very foundations of the earth.
For a moment, there was only silence, the smell of gasoline and burning rubber filling the air.
Georgia tried to move but realized that pain had become her entire universe.
Every breath was agony.
Her left arm was bent at an unnatural angle, and something wet was pooling beneath her in the driver's seat.
She tried to call for help, but her voice came out as a broken whisper, barely audible over the hiss of steam rising from the crumpled hood.
The rain continued to fall, drops finding their way through the shattered windshield to mix with the blood on her face as Georgia stared blankly into nothingness.
This was how she dies. Alone in a destroyed car. Bleeding out while rain washed away the evidence of her existence.
Arlo had won.
He'd finally found a way to be rid of the wife who'd trapped him. The orphan who'd dared to reach above her station.
Darkness crept in from the edges of Georgia's vision like a curtain slowly closing on the final act of a tragedy.
She thought about the children at St. Mary's Orphanage, who would never get the help they needed.
She thought about Mrs. Davies, who would die waiting for a surgery that would never come.
She thought about the life she'd never lived. The love she'd never found.
The person she might have been if she hadn't been so desperate, broken and pathetically in love with a man who despised her.
However, just before darkness claimed her completely, she saw a figure moving toward her through the rain.
Tall. Broad-shouldered. Moving with purposeful strides like he owned the very ground he walked on.
His face was obscured by the storm, but his eyes, even from this distance, even through her fading vision, were the coldest thing she'd ever seen.
Colder than Arlo's cruelty. Colder than Stella's mockery. Colder than the rain soaking through her clothes. Colder than death itself.
Then everything went black.