Chapter 1

Last life, my girlfriend was trapped in a fire. I ran in, took the burns, and dragged her out alive. 

When she woke up, she pointed at me first: “He’s the arsonist.”

Only later did I learn the truth—she’d been sleeping with her boss. They set the fire for an insurance payout and pinned everything on me. 

Police investigations, the company cutting ties, the media turning me into a monster—I couldn’t prove a thing. I died in the rain, discarded like trash.

This time, I didn’t expose them. I didn’t call the cops. 

On the night of the fire, I left early—then staged a robbery and walked myself into a police station, building the cleanest alibi possible.

They lit the match on schedule, trapped themselves, and waited for me to charge in. 

As the flames grew and I never showed, she called—furious—demanding I come now.

I glanced at the officer taking my statement and said into the phone, calmly: 

“Sorry. I can’t leave right now.”

————

The fast-food restaurant’s window was filmed with grease, and the neon outside washed the rain into a pale blur.

I kept my hood low and sat in the corner by the glass, my fingers wrapped around a disposable paper cup. The warmth couldn’t reach through the cardboard.

The burns on my face hurt every time I moved.

I stared at the revolving door of the building across the street.

It was the Knox Financial annex. Ryan Black’s office was up there—he was the company’s project director.

A month ago, in that same building, fire climbed from the twentieth floor upward, as if someone had lit a long fuse inside the walls.

That fire burned away a lot of things. It burned me into what I was now.

The revolving door finally turned.

Ryan stepped out, his coat draped over his forearm, walking unhurriedly like he’d just finished a boring meeting.

He opened his umbrella, checked his watch, and wore the faintest look of relief.

I set the cup down and slid my right hand inside my jacket.

The knife handle pressed against my palm—cold, solid. For days I’d told myself the same thing: today, there would be no hesitation.

The police wouldn’t clear my name. The company’s legal department would only push me out. And the media loved a simple story—a hero turned arsonist.

If they all wanted an ending, I’d give them one.

I stood and pushed the door open. Cold wind and rain hit my face, scraping at my wounds like fine grit. I lowered my head and crossed the puddles in the parking lot, walking faster and faster until I was nearly running.

Ryan was about to get into his car.

He turned his head slightly, as if he’d heard something, his brow twitching.

I drew the knife. Rainwater slid down the blade.

I didn’t call his name. I didn’t give a warning. With only a few yards left, I could see the instant his pupils tightened.

In the next second, blinding headlights slammed in from the side.

Tires shrieked on wet pavement. I barely had time to turn before the front end of a black SUV filled my vision.

Then the world flipped, like a giant hand had swept everything off the table.

A crushing impact hit my chest first, like something hard drove straight through me, and then I was thrown. My back slammed onto the ground; rain and blood mixed into a slick, warm pool.

I lay there, my breathing breaking apart, my vision shattered by raindrops.

The SUV door opened. Footsteps splashed through a puddle.

Selene Harper stepped out.

She didn’t even look at me. Her first move was a quick trot to Ryan, reaching out to steady him—as if she hadn’t just hit someone.

Once Ryan regained his balance, he brushed at his sleeve and murmured something to her.

Selene looked up at him. There was no panic in her eyes, only a lightness, like relief after finishing a long, annoying task.

Only then did Ryan turn and walk toward me.

He wasn’t in a hurry. Water flicked from the tip of his shoe like he was out for a stroll. He stopped in front of me and looked down. There was no anger, no fear—just calculated disgust. He lifted his foot and kicked me hard in the ribs.

Something inside me thudded. A metallic taste surged up my throat. I couldn’t cough it out; I could only swallow.

“Still chasing?” Ryan laughed softly, the tone he might use to mock a dog that didn’t know when to stop. “You look like this and you think a knife matters?”

Selene stood behind him under the umbrella.

At last her eyes fell on me, cold as glass.

“Aiden,” she said—my name—with no apology in her voice at all. “When are you finally going to learn to lose?”

Ryan kicked me again, even more casually this time. “Don’t waste time. He won’t last long.”

I clenched my teeth and forced my gaze from Ryan’s shoes to Selene’s face.

Her lipstick was perfect. Her hair was neat, not a strand out of place, like she’d just come from a dinner event.

My name is Aiden Cross.

The woman who just ran me down with her SUV—and ran straight to Ryan the moment she got out—was Selene Harper.

My fiancée.

For the past two years, we’d lived in the same apartment, using matching key cards to enter and leave the same company.

A month ago, I thought I was going to marry her.

And a month ago, the Knox Financial annex caught fire.

I was the building’s security supervisor, responsible for access control, camera systems, and fire-safety inspections. Selene was a project assistant at the company. That night she was working late. I stayed—partly for routine checks, partly to keep her company.

The fire started near the records room on the twenty-first floor. I heard Selene’s cries and ran in without hesitation.

When I found her, she was curled in a corner, her face smeared black with soot, tears cutting through her makeup until it ran.

When she saw me, she lunged like I was the last thing keeping her alive. I threw my coat over her head and dragged her toward the exit.

The distance felt longer than it should have. Flames licked through the cracks of the door. Heat pressed down like a solid wall.

At one point, a chunk of burning ceiling crashed down. I couldn’t dodge it. All I could do was raise my arm and take it.

My skin blistered. The pain went numb.

With what strength and awareness I had left, I got her out.

Later I woke up in a hospital bed, my arm wrapped in gauze, my chest tearing with pain every time I breathed.

For a while, the media called me a hero. People came to visit.

Then the story flipped.

Selene suddenly changed her statement. In front of the police and the cameras, she accused me of setting the fire.

Her reason was “relationship conflict.” She said she wanted to break up, I refused, and I threatened to burn the place down. She claimed the flames got out of control.

I thought I’d misheard her. I thought smoke had scrambled her brain.

But Selene kept going. She said I’d been unstable lately. She said we’d fought in the records room.

I watched her, searching for a flicker of hesitation in her eyes.

There was none.

After that, everything sped up like someone hit fast-forward.

Headlines changed me from “rescuer” to “arson suspect.” The company issued a statement and cut ties. The police took my phone and my laptop and demanded to know what I’d done.

I tried to find the security footage, only to learn the cameras had been cut before the fire started.

Selene said I had done it—cut the feed so I could set the fire. In that building, I was the one person with the access to make it happen.

For a while, I believed the truth would surface on its own. But truth needs time, and they didn’t give me any.

Later I discovered Selene and Ryan had been sleeping together for a long time. All those “late nights,” those “business trips,” those moments when she said she couldn’t pick up the phone—every one of them had the same purpose: keeping me out of her real life.

Worse, I learned the fire wasn’t an accident.

That night, Ryan cut the cameras. Ryan set the fire.

The fire was deliberate. Even Selene being “trapped” was deliberate. They needed me at the scene so I couldn’t stay out of it.

They knew I would come.

Because at the time, I loved her.

I only hated myself for understanding it too late.

By the time I pieced the fragments together, public opinion and procedure had already crushed me into a ready-made “culprit.”

I wanted to find Ryan. I wanted to force him to talk. I wanted him to pay for the fire and everything that came after.

But there was one thing I never figured out—

Why did Ryan set the fire?

Maybe the answer was in his mouth.

But I no longer had a chance to hear it.

Rain ran along the shell of my ear, pulling the world’s sounds farther away.

In my blurred vision, Ryan crouched down close to me and lowered his voice, as if he didn’t want anyone else to hear.

“You chased me all the way here,” he said. “That’s almost funny. But you should understand—this ending was written a long time ago.”

Selene stood to the side and nodded faintly, like she was signing off on a job well done.

I tried to lift my hand, to grab at anything, but my fingertips only scraped weakly against the ground.

I stared at Selene’s eyes, forcing myself to carve that face into memory. She didn’t look away. She just watched me coldly, like I was something already thrown out.

I could feel the heat leaving my body, carried off piece by piece by the rain, like someone turning off the lights one by one.

In the last clear moment I had, a single thought remained—simple, sharp, and absolute:

If I get another chance, I will never go into that building.

The world went black.

Then a beam of light stabbed into my eyes.

I jolted upright, my palm pressed to my chest, my heartbeat hammering like it wanted to break my ribs.

No rain. No blood. Only the low hum of the air conditioner.

My arms were smooth and intact—no gauze, no hardened scabs from burns.

My phone glowed on the nightstand. The date was unmistakable.

Three days before the fire.

I stared at the numbers, breathing slowly, my mind unnaturally clear.

Every detail from my last life lined up in my head like files in a cabinet—time, place, voices, expressions—everything snapping into place.

I had been reborn.