Chapter 1

When the armored car had room for only one passenger, Damian Russo chose me.

I was saved, but Lilia Brown didn't make it. She bled out in the crossfire, her body left in the rubble. Damian pretended he didn't care and married me as planned.

For three years, he made me pay for her death—beating me, starving me, blaming me for the fact that she was gone.

In the end, he drove us both off a cliff instead.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the docks on the night of the ambush. This time, I stepped aside and let him save the woman he truly loved.

......

"Victoria, get in!"

A bullet grazed my cheek, leaving a burning, stinging trail in its wake.

I blinked hard, my pupils constricting. I had seen this exact scene at the abandoned pier before. In my past life.

Hitmen from the rival Syndicate were swarming in like a tidal wave.

Right in front of me sat the armored extraction SUV. The driver was already slumped over the steering wheel with a bullet hole in his forehead.

The rear compartment was equipped with top-tier ballistic shielding, but it was packed solid with emergency weapons and communication equipment—there was no room for passengers back there.

Out of the three of us, only my fiancé, Damian Russo, had the biometrics and override codes to start the vehicle and get us out of here.

There was only one remaining seat—the front passenger seat.

Damian's eyes darted frantically back and forth between me and Lilia.

In my previous life, amid this exact hail of gunfire, Damian had made his choice.

"Victoria! Give me your hand!" Damian's voice was hoarse, screaming over the deafening roar of the gunfire.

I just stared at him, my eyes ice-cold.

I didn't reach out.

Under Damian's shocked gaze, I took a deliberate step back, pulling away from him without a second of hesitation.

"Damian, take Lilia."

I never want to carry the crushing weight of your dead true love ever again.

Damian froze completely.

He stared at me, his eyes wide with a flash of disbelief.

But a split second later, beneath that hypocritical mask of panic, was an almost uncontrollable wave of relief. The tight line of his jaw instantly relaxed.

"Victoria, this is your choice!" Damian grabbed Lilia by the shoulder and shoved her hard into the armored cabin.

With half his body already inside the vehicle, he threw one last sentence back at me: "I was going to save you, Victoria—you're the one who insisted I take Lilia! Hold on, stay out of sight, and don't move. I... I promise I'll bring a team back for you!"

He didn't spare me a single backward glance—as if terrified that if he lingered for even a second, I would change my mind and steal his precious dream girl's chance at survival.

It was utterly ridiculous.

In my past life, after those armored doors closed, Lilia hadn't lasted ten minutes out here. She'd been riddled with bullets, her blood soaking into the dirt of the pier.

When Damian finally fought his way back with a rescue team, all he found was a rapidly cooling corpse.

At her funeral, he had wept like a soulless walking corpse.

Yet, he turned to me with bloodshot eyes, gripped my hand, and said with unwavering resolve, "Victoria, we're keeping our engagement. We marry as planned."

How stupid was I? I thought it was a solemn vow born of duty and love, forged after he had lost everything.

Until our wedding night.

He had come in blackout drunk, kicked the bedroom door open, grabbed me by the hair, and forcefully slammed me against the hardwood floor.

Driving the heel of his dress shoe into my fingers, he stared down at me as I gasped in pain, his eyes swirling with a sick, twisted madness. "Does it hurt? You get to live, but my Lilia died in that damn rubble! This is all because of you! If I hadn't saved you, she wouldn't be dead! You owe her your life, Victoria!"

He had crucified me with a twisted, deformed moral shackle, forcing me to sacrifice my dignity for a lifetime just to honor his precious dream girl.

Damian hadn't chosen to save me in our past life out of love.

He simply knew that if he left me to die, every mafia family in the city would curse him as the bastard who abandoned his fiancée, and the wrath of the Corsica family would utterly consume him.

He gave me the chance to live last time. But he spent the rest of his life regretting it, ultimately taking out all of his own incompetence and bitter hatred on me.

Now, I had made the choice for him.

He got his true love. He even couldn't wait to dump all the blame for abandoning his fiancée squarely onto my shoulders: "You're the one who insisted I take Lilia."

Bang! Bang, bang!

The rival syndicate's hitmen were rapidly tightening their perimeter, and the hail of gunfire began zeroing in on my position.

I pressed my back against the cold, rough concrete pillar, calculating my next move.

Damian yelled that he would bring a team back for me?

The corners of my mouth twitched into a deeply mocking sneer.

In my past life, when he had left Lilia behind in the crossfire, his heart and mind were so fixated on his beloved girl that the second he broke through the blockade, he scrambled like a rabid dog to mobilize every available gun to come back and save her.

But this time? The person he loved most was currently sitting safe and sound in the passenger seat of an armored truck. Just soothing her frayed nerves would probably consume all of his attention.

Would he even remember the fiancée he had left behind to die?