Waking Up to Her True Face

Waking Up to Her True Face

Sheelagh Sexton

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Ethan Miller, a Seattle software architect, woke in a cold sweat, his heart hammering. His wife, Olivia, slept peacefully beside him, unaware. The calendar showed it was ten years earlier, their first year of marriage, but he'd just lived through a terrifying premonition: Olivia, supposedly dead for two years, reappeared in an Alaskan lodge with another man, Liam, confessed a harrowing regret, then died again. The dream's raw pain and phantom ache of betrayal clung to him, chilling his once-normal mornings. Soon, the nightmare began to bleed into his present. Olivia's late nights grew more frequent, her phone calls hushed. He caught glimpses of a new, unfamiliar perfume. Then, the undeniable truth: witnessing her outside an upscale restaurant, laughing intimately with a young man, Liam Vance, his heart-stoppingly familiar face mirroring the one in his dream. A small park rendezvous sealed it-a public, passionate kiss, Liam's smug gaze, Olivia captivated. The illusion of his loving wife shattered with sickening finality. But the worst was yet to come. Hiding in plain sight, Ethan overheard Olivia giddily discussing Liam, dismissing him as "boring," and chillingly, casually discussing his life insurance policy. "Enough to start fresh, really fresh." His blood ran cold. The woman he had adored, trusted implicitly, was gone, replaced by a calculating stranger. All he felt was a profound, wrenching injustice, a searing bewilderment. He was a fool. But Olivia's contempt and calculated cruelty would not go unpunished. No longer a naive, trusting fool, Ethan, armed with this terrifying future knowledge, made a quiet, chilling decision. He picked up his phone, his fingers trembling, and called his shrewd Aunt Carol in London. It was time to orchestrate his own disappearance, to rewrite his destiny.

Introduction

Ethan Miller, a Seattle software architect, woke in a cold sweat, his heart hammering. His wife, Olivia, slept peacefully beside him, unaware.

The calendar showed it was ten years earlier, their first year of marriage, but he'd just lived through a terrifying premonition: Olivia, supposedly dead for two years, reappeared in an Alaskan lodge with another man, Liam, confessed a harrowing regret, then died again.

The dream's raw pain and phantom ache of betrayal clung to him, chilling his once-normal mornings.

Soon, the nightmare began to bleed into his present. Olivia's late nights grew more frequent, her phone calls hushed. He caught glimpses of a new, unfamiliar perfume.

Then, the undeniable truth: witnessing her outside an upscale restaurant, laughing intimately with a young man, Liam Vance, his heart-stoppingly familiar face mirroring the one in his dream.

A small park rendezvous sealed it-a public, passionate kiss, Liam's smug gaze, Olivia captivated. The illusion of his loving wife shattered with sickening finality.

But the worst was yet to come. Hiding in plain sight, Ethan overheard Olivia giddily discussing Liam, dismissing him as "boring," and chillingly, casually discussing his life insurance policy. "Enough to start fresh, really fresh."

His blood ran cold. The woman he had adored, trusted implicitly, was gone, replaced by a calculating stranger.

All he felt was a profound, wrenching injustice, a searing bewilderment. He was a fool.

But Olivia's contempt and calculated cruelty would not go unpunished. No longer a naive, trusting fool, Ethan, armed with this terrifying future knowledge, made a quiet, chilling decision.

He picked up his phone, his fingers trembling, and called his shrewd Aunt Carol in London. It was time to orchestrate his own disappearance, to rewrite his destiny.

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SHANA GRAY
4.3

I died on a Tuesday. It wasn't a quick death. It was slow, cold, and meticulously planned by the man who called himself my father. I was twenty years old. He needed my kidney to save my sister. The spare part for the golden child. I remember the blinding lights of the operating theater, the sterile smell of betrayal, and the phantom pain of a surgeon's scalpel carving into my flesh while my screams echoed unheard. I remember looking through the observation glass and seeing him-my father, Giovanni Vitiello, the Don of the Chicago Outfit-watching me die with the same detached expression he used when signing a death warrant. He chose her. He always chose her. And then, I woke up. Not in heaven. Not in hell. But in my own bed, a year before my scheduled execution. My body was whole, unscarred. The timeline had reset, a glitch in the cruel matrix of my existence, giving me a second chance I never asked for. This time, when my father handed me a one-way ticket to London-an exile disguised as a severance package-I didn't cry. I didn't beg. My heart, once a bleeding wound, was now a block of ice. He didn't know he was talking to a ghost. He didn't know I had already lived through his ultimate betrayal. He also didn't know that six months ago, during the city's brutal territory wars, I was the one who saved his most valuable asset. In a secret safe house, I stitched up the wounds of a blinded soldier, a man whose life hung by a thread. He never saw my face. He only knew my voice, the scent of vanilla, and the steady touch of my hands. He called me Sette. Seven. For the seven stitches I put in his shoulder. That man was Dante Moretti. The Ruthless Capo. The man my sister, Isabella, is now set to marry. She stole my story. She claimed my actions, my voice, my scent. And Dante, the man who could spot a lie from a mile away, believed the beautiful deception because he wanted it to be true. He wanted the golden girl to be his savior, not the invisible sister who was only ever good for her spare parts. So I took the ticket. In my past life, I fought them, and they silenced me on an operating table. This time, I will let them have their perfect, gilded lie. I will go to London. I will disappear. I will let Seraphina Vitiello die on that plane. But I will not be a victim. This time, I will not be the lamb led to slaughter. This time, from the shadows of my exile, I will be the one holding the match. And I will wait, with the patience of the dead, to watch their entire world burn. Because a ghost has nothing to lose, and a queen of ashes has an empire to gain.

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