The Man Who Faked His Own Death

The Man Who Faked His Own Death

Gavin

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The sterile white walls of the hospital room were my first sight, a blinding canvas reflecting the nothingness inside me. Just days ago, I was Scarlett, a nurse, a wife; now, I was a widow, grieving the hero firefighter who died saving me from our burning home. My childhood friend, Liam, found me after my desperate attempt to escape the crushing silence left behind, dragging me back to a life I didn't want. As I struggled for water, voices drifted from the hall-Mark, my husband' s colleague, and then him. "You're a lucky bastard," Mark chuckled. "A hero's funeral, the whole nine yards." "It was a lot of work," came the casual reply. "Had to make sure the dental records were switched, get the right uniform on the dummy. The gas line explosion covered the rest." It was Ryan. My dead husband. Alive. My breath hitched as I heard him dismiss my suicide attempt as "unfortunate" before explaining his elaborately faked death: it was all to leave me for Ava, his brother's widow. The man I died for, the hero I mourned, was a liar, a coward, who hadn't saved me from a fire but thrown me into one. My love curdled into scorching betrayal. He didn't just abandon me; he erased me, making my deep grief seem like a pathetic joke. In the shattering silence, as Liam, with his kind, honest eyes, rushed to my side, a wild, desperate idea ignited in the ruins of my heart. "Liam," I rasped, "do you remember what you asked me, a long time ago, under the old oak tree by the lake?" "Is the offer still on the table?" I asked, looking directly at the man who had always been my anchor. This wasn't about love. It was about pure, unadulterated defiance. This was about proving that the old Scarlett was dead, but a new, unbreakable woman had risen from the ashes he left behind. I would not be his victim. I would live, and I would erase every last trace of Ryan Miller from my life.

Introduction

The sterile white walls of the hospital room were my first sight, a blinding canvas reflecting the nothingness inside me.

Just days ago, I was Scarlett, a nurse, a wife; now, I was a widow, grieving the hero firefighter who died saving me from our burning home.

My childhood friend, Liam, found me after my desperate attempt to escape the crushing silence left behind, dragging me back to a life I didn't want.

As I struggled for water, voices drifted from the hall-Mark, my husband' s colleague, and then him.

"You're a lucky bastard," Mark chuckled. "A hero's funeral, the whole nine yards."

"It was a lot of work," came the casual reply. "Had to make sure the dental records were switched, get the right uniform on the dummy. The gas line explosion covered the rest."

It was Ryan. My dead husband. Alive.

My breath hitched as I heard him dismiss my suicide attempt as "unfortunate" before explaining his elaborately faked death: it was all to leave me for Ava, his brother's widow.

The man I died for, the hero I mourned, was a liar, a coward, who hadn't saved me from a fire but thrown me into one.

My love curdled into scorching betrayal.

He didn't just abandon me; he erased me, making my deep grief seem like a pathetic joke.

In the shattering silence, as Liam, with his kind, honest eyes, rushed to my side, a wild, desperate idea ignited in the ruins of my heart.

"Liam," I rasped, "do you remember what you asked me, a long time ago, under the old oak tree by the lake?"

"Is the offer still on the table?" I asked, looking directly at the man who had always been my anchor.

This wasn't about love. It was about pure, unadulterated defiance.

This was about proving that the old Scarlett was dead, but a new, unbreakable woman had risen from the ashes he left behind.

I would not be his victim.

I would live, and I would erase every last trace of Ryan Miller from my life.

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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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