It's been thirty days of the online mob tearing me apart and my husband finally unlocks the door to the room where he's been keeping me. His childhood sweetheart got drunk and killed my mother in a hit-and-run on some empty street. My husband threatened our child's life to force me into signing a settlement agreement that would get her off the hook. Then, he told everyone I was the drunk driver who killed my own mother, took my phone, and locked me away for a month. When I finally got out, every social media platform had me painted as this selfish, heartless monster. I couldn't take the pressure anymore and jumped off our building. But when I open my eyes again, I'm back on the day of the accident. This time, I lock my mother in her room and refuse to let her leave the house. But somehow, Jessica still manages to run over and kill some old lady with her car. *** I barely get my mother's door locked when my husband, Nathan Gray, calls me. "Ophelia, where are you?" His voice sounds panicked and tense. When I tell him I'm home, he lets out this quiet sigh of relief and goes silent for a few seconds before he speaks again. "Jessica... Jessica hit someone with her car. I just finished dealing with it, and I'm heading home now. Wait for me, okay?" I'm completely stunned. It takes me a second to process what he just said. Nathan's childhood sweetheart, Jessica Hayes, hit someone again, but my mother's locked in her room. So who the hell did she hit this time? I have him on speaker, so my mother hears everything through the door. I tell her, "You wanted to know why I locked you in there and won't let you leave? Promise me you'll stay in that room and keep completely quiet until I say you can come out. You'll understand everything soon enough." My mother sounds confused but she agrees anyway. Nathan gets home within minutes. The second he walks through the door, he rushes over and pulls me into his arms. His voice comes out muffled against the top of my head. "Ophelia, I'm so sorry. Jessica accidentally hit your mother with her car. She died at the scene." I jerk away from him and stare at him in complete shock. "Wait, who did you say got hit?" Nathan looks at me with this mix of pity and helplessness in his eyes. "Ophelia, I know this is hard to process right now. Jessica told me it wasn't on purpose, she just got blinded by the sun for a second." He pauses and his voice goes flat. "If anyone's to blame, it's your mom. She didn't watch where she was going. I already chewed Jessica out pretty good and she's really shaken up about it, so I sent her home to rest. But she promised me she'll come by in a couple days to apologize to you in person." I can't believe what I'm hearing. Even if it's not my mother who died today, it's still a human life. How the hell does Jessica get to kill someone and just walk away like nothing happened? "Nathan, you realize you're protecting a criminal, right?" I can't help but ask. He sighs and pulls a settlement agreement out of his bag, unfolds it, and holds it in front of my face. "Look, I know you're upset, but Jessica's got like a million followers now. She's a major influencer, and she can't have anything on her record." "Her dad saved my life when I was a kid, and I promised I'd protect Jessica for the rest of her life. You're my wife, we're family, so this debt is partly yours too." He taps the paper. "Your mother's the one who died, so you need to sign this settlement agreement. That way, even if this comes out later, it won't affect her. Just think of it as helping me repay what I owe her family." I slap with all my strength across the face. The crack echoes through the room, and his head whips to the side. "Nathan, you're a monster! Is Jessica's reputation really more important to you than someone's life?" That slap pisses him off. He shoves me hard, and I fall backward, my forehead slamming into the coffee table. A golf ball-sized bump swells up immediately. He stands over me with an annoyed look on his face. "Ophelia, I'm not here to ask for your permission. I'm telling you what's going to happen. You're signing this agreement whether you like it or not."
In my past life, I never understood why Nathan would frame me to protect Jessica and use our child's life as a threat. How could his wife and child matter less than Jessica's reputation? Living through this again, I finally get it. Nathan doesn't love me, and he doesn't love our child. The person he's always loved is Jessica. I hold my throbbing forehead and look at the man standing in front of me. I hate him so much. I hate how I died so miserably in my last life, how my mother died, how I was stupid enough to marry this piece of garbage who's worse than an animal. When Nathan sees the pure hatred in my eyes, something flickers across his face. He reaches out toward me like he wants to help me up. "Ophelia, I didn't mean to push you. I was just angry. Let me see if you're hurt..." Before he can finish, his phone starts ringing like crazy. It's Jessica calling. When Nathan answers the call, Jessica's soft crying comes through the speaker. "Nate, what do I do? I think someone got me on camera." Nathan cleaned up all the evidence right after the accident, but it was getting dark, and Jessica didn't notice someone at the other end of the alley recording everything on their phone. "I just got this anonymous photo showing the two of us standing over the body. What if whoever sent it goes to the cops?" Jessica continues. She sobs harder, and Nathan's face tightens with worry. That's when it hits me. The police! I've been so focused on coming back in time that I didn't even think to call the cops. While Nathan's distracted, I pull out my phone to dial 911. If I report Jessica's hit-and-run right now, the police will find evidence no matter how well Nathan cleaned up the scene. Before I can even dial, Nathan catches me. He roars at me and slaps the phone out of my hand, "Ophelia, what the hell are you doing? Are you trying to call the cops?" The phone hits the floor, and the screen shatters, but I lunge for it anyway. Pain shoots through my hand as Nathan stomps down on it to keep me from grabbing the phone. He's got this cruel smirk on his face while he grinds his foot down on my fingers. "I already cleaned up every trace of evidence before I came home. The car's at the scrapyard, and your mother's body is already in the crematorium. Even if you call the cops, there's no proof Jessica was the one who hit her." "Guess I need to teach you a lesson so you'll learn to behave." He grabs a fistful of my hair and yanks me up off the floor. My phone's completely destroyed, and the screen's dead, but that's not enough for him. He drags me toward the bedroom. In my last life, he locked me in that room for a month and treated me like an animal. I had to eat, sleep, and use the bathroom all in the same space. Just thinking about that bone-deep terror makes my whole body shake. I look up at him with pleading eyes. "Nathan, please don't. I won't call the police, just please don't lock me in that room. You know how terrified I am of the dark." I'm trying to make myself look harmless, hoping to trigger whatever shred of affection he might still have for me as his wife. Something flickers in his eyes, and he looks away. "Ophelia, I don't want to hurt you, but I promised Jessica's father I'd protect her. Just sign the settlement agreement, and I'll let you go." "Why does it have to be me who signs it?" He says it like it's the most obvious thing in the world. "Because it's your mother who died." I shake my head. "But Nathan, how are you so sure it's my mother who's dead?" Nathan clearly wasn't expecting that question. He freezes, and his grip on me loosens as he answers automatically. "I got to the scene right after Jessica called me. She'd been drinking a little, and she was driving pretty fast." His voice drops, and there's guilt creeping into his tone. "The impact was severe. The victim's face was completely unrecognizable, but I checked the body, and she was wearing a silver bracelet on her wrist. I recognized it immediately as that custom bracelet you gave your mother last year." A custom bracelet? At that moment, I realize who actually died. It's Samantha Gray, Nathan's own mother.
Samantha lives in the same apartment complex as us, and I'd ordered two identical bracelets back then. One for Samantha and one for my mother. So Nathan's not just protecting the person who killed his own mother, he personally destroyed the evidence and had his mother's body cremated. The absurdity of it hits me and I can't help it. I actually laugh out loud. I pick up that settlement agreement from the floor, shove it in Nathan's face, and tell him very seriously, "Nathan, I'm not the one who's qualified to sign this thing, and I'm warning you right now, if you actually go through with this, you're going to regret it." "Why?" he asks without thinking. I say, "Because the person who died isn't my mother. It's yours." I thought after hearing that, Nathan would at least hesitate or try to verify what I'm saying. Instead, his expression changes completely, and he points at me and starts yelling. "Ophelia, have you lost your mind? How dare you curse my mother like that? You'd say something this disgusting just to smear Jessica's name? I shouldn't have gone easy on you at all." He lunges at me like he's about to hit me again. I dodge out of the way quickly. Watching him play the devoted lover ready to fight for his woman, I suddenly feel exhausted by this whole thing. I sigh, and I'm about to call my mother out of the room so he can face reality. "Nathan, I'm telling you the truth. If you don't believe me, I'll..." Jessica's phone call cuts me off mid-sentence. "Nate, did you get everything sorted out? That guy who took the photo just messaged me again, and he's demanding ten million dollars to keep quiet. He says if I don't pay him, he's going straight to the cops with the pictures. "Nate, I'm so scared. You promised you'd get me that settlement agreement, right? What if Ophelia won't sign it? Am I going to prison?" Nathan's heart melts at the sound of her distress, and he keeps reassuring her over and over. "Jessica, don't be scared, okay? I promise you, as long as I'm here, nobody's sending you to prison. "I'll handle everything for you. You said the photo only shows your back, right? If there's no face in it, who can tell you were the one driving?" I stare at him. "What are you planning to do?" Nathan hangs up and turns to me with a gentle smile, but the words that come out of his mouth are pure venom. "Besides the settlement agreement, I just thought of an even better way to clear Jessica's name completely. "Ophelia, why don't you take the fall for her? All you have to do is tell everyone that you were the one driving this morning and you killed your own mother. That way, even if the guy with the photos comes forward and says it was Jessica, I can testify as your husband and confirm it was actually you. I'll just say you paid internet trolls to try and frame Jessica." It's the exact same plan from my past life. My vision blurs with rage, and I scream at him, "Nathan, do you even have a soul?" Nathan gets more and more excited about his own brilliant idea. "Ophelia, don't worry, I'll hire you the best defense lawyer money can buy and make sure you only serve a few years. "While you're inside, I'll take care of our child and raise her right, so you won't have anything to worry about. When you get out, we'll still be one happy family." I force the words out through clenched teeth. "Don't even think about it! Nathan, over my dead body!" He moves closer and I back away, biting down so hard I taste blood in my mouth. That's when the door clicks open from outside. Our daughter, Ava Gray, is home from school, and she calls out "Daddy!" in that sweet voice of hers. Nathan's eyes darken as he looks between me and Ava. "Ophelia, since you won't cooperate, don't blame me for what happens next." A bad feeling hits me immediately. "Ava, run!" But it's too late. Nathan rushes over and pins Ava to the ground, gripping her jaw to force her mouth open. His other hand pulls out a chocolate bar from his pocket, tears off the wrapper with his teeth, and moves to shove it in her mouth. Ava starts crying from how rough he's being, and my heart clenches. "No!" Nathan turns to look at me, and his eyes are bloodshot and wild. "Ophelia, you're taking the fall and signing that settlement agreement. Both of them, no exceptions! "If you don't agree, I'm shoving this chocolate in Ava's mouth. You know she's severely allergic. If she doesn't get to the hospital in time, she could die."
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