Second Chance, Deadly Trap

Second Chance, Deadly Trap

Gavin

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One moment, I was just Sarah, pulling weeds from my tomato patch under the hot Nebraska sun, living the quiet farm life I' d painstakingly built. The next, a chilling wave of memory, raw and horrifying, washed over me – memories of another life, a past I' d lived and died. And with that horrific clarity, I saw him again: Mark, my husband, the man who disappeared seven years ago, now limping up our driveway, playing the pathetic, broken-down prodigal son. My heart didn't leap; it solidified into a cold, hard stone, because I remembered everything he'd done in that other life. I remembered how we' d welcomed him in, how my in-laws had drained their life savings, how I'd sold my mother's last keepsakes, all out of love and misguided pity. I remembered how he' d squandered every penny on his secret city wife and her gambling debts, then, when the money ran out, tried to sell our farm out from under us. I remembered the barn burning, the livestock screaming, the loan sharks he brought to our door, leaving us with nothing but ashes, debt, and the bitter taste of his laughter as he drove away. None of us survived that first time. Now, he was back, with the same tattered clothes and the same practiced look of sorrow, mouthing the same fake emotions: "Sarah, I finally made it home." My blood ran cold with the memory of starving in the winter, of seeing my mother-in-law cry, of the life he had so casually incinerated. I would not let it happen again. This time, I would not be the same naive country wife; I would make sure he walked into a trap of his own making, a trap from which he would never escape.

Introduction

One moment, I was just Sarah, pulling weeds from my tomato patch under the hot Nebraska sun, living the quiet farm life I' d painstakingly built.

The next, a chilling wave of memory, raw and horrifying, washed over me – memories of another life, a past I' d lived and died.

And with that horrific clarity, I saw him again: Mark, my husband, the man who disappeared seven years ago, now limping up our driveway, playing the pathetic, broken-down prodigal son.

My heart didn't leap; it solidified into a cold, hard stone, because I remembered everything he'd done in that other life.

I remembered how we' d welcomed him in, how my in-laws had drained their life savings, how I'd sold my mother's last keepsakes, all out of love and misguided pity.

I remembered how he' d squandered every penny on his secret city wife and her gambling debts, then, when the money ran out, tried to sell our farm out from under us.

I remembered the barn burning, the livestock screaming, the loan sharks he brought to our door, leaving us with nothing but ashes, debt, and the bitter taste of his laughter as he drove away.

None of us survived that first time.

Now, he was back, with the same tattered clothes and the same practiced look of sorrow, mouthing the same fake emotions: "Sarah, I finally made it home."

My blood ran cold with the memory of starving in the winter, of seeing my mother-in-law cry, of the life he had so casually incinerated.

I would not let it happen again.

This time, I would not be the same naive country wife; I would make sure he walked into a trap of his own making, a trap from which he would never escape.

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Contract With The Devil: Love In Shackles

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I watched my husband sign the papers that would end our marriage while he was busy texting the woman he actually loved. He didn't even glance at the header. He just scribbled the sharp, jagged signature that had signed death warrants for half of New York, tossed the file onto the passenger seat, and tapped his screen again. "Done," he said, his voice devoid of emotion. That was Dante Moretti. The Underboss. A man who could smell a lie from a mile away but couldn't see that his wife had just handed him an annulment decree disguised beneath a stack of mundane logistics reports. For three years, I scrubbed his blood out of his shirts. I saved his family's alliance when his ex, Sofia, ran off with a civilian. In return, he treated me like furniture. He left me in the rain to save Sofia from a broken nail. He left me alone on my birthday to drink champagne on a yacht with her. He even handed me a glass of whiskey—her favorite drink—forgetting that I despised the taste. I was merely a placeholder. A ghost in my own home. So, I stopped waiting. I burned our wedding portrait in the fireplace, left my platinum ring in the ashes, and boarded a one-way flight to San Francisco. I thought I was finally free. I thought I had escaped the cage. But I underestimated Dante. When he finally opened that file weeks later and realized he had signed away his wife without looking, the Reaper didn't accept defeat. He burned down the world to find me, obsessed with reclaiming the woman he had already thrown away.

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