“You're free to go,” the chief said firmly. “And I meant everything I said. My office is open to you. Whatever you bring to my table, I will listen. You've more than earned that.”William nodded once and turned toward the door.He took a step, then another.Then he slowed, And stopped.Not because he had forgotten something.But because something had found him.A thought. Or rather, a feeling that had been buried underneath everything else since the moment he woke up twenty years in the past, a feeling that had waited patiently while he focused on bigger things, and was now rising to the surface with quiet and unmistakable force.Lydia.Benjamin, his ex-wife and his closest friend.The two people who had smiled at him, stood beside him, and shared his table while secretly dismantling everything he had built and everything he was.The affair was one wound.But the betrayal ran far deeper than that.He remembered what they had planned. What they had actually set in motion against him in

The morning came quietly. William's house held a stillness that felt earned rather than empty. No Lydia. There had never been a Lydia in these walls, not really. They had been together in the way two people can occupy the same relationship without ever truly sharing the same space. Dates, appearances, conversations that never went deep enough to matter. But never this house, this was his. He was standing in the kitchen, turning a cup of coffee slowly in his hands, his thoughts already three moves ahead of where most people's would be, when the knock came. Sharp. Familiar, he already knew before he moved. He set the cup down carefully, walked to the door, and opened it. Benjamin, standing there with his hands slightly open at his sides, his expression arranged into something that was trying very hard to look casual and concerned at the same time. William looked at him, the urge was immediate and physical. A hot, rising pressure behind his eyes and in his knuckles that wan

At that moment William's phone buzzed. He looked at the table and picked it up. The screen showed a notification. It was the $50,000 reward for catching the Blue Cap Murderer. The transfer had just gone through. He stared at the number for a moment without blinking. That brought his total account balance to $150,000. It was not much. Not compared to what he used to have. He had never kept large amounts in his personal account because everything had always been invested directly back into the company. Every dollar that came in went straight back out to build something bigger. But that company was gone now. The night before his wedding, he had signed everything over to Lydia. Every share. Every contract. Every asset. All of it transferred into her name because he had trusted her completely and believed that marriage meant sharing everything without question. In his past life, that same night had been the night of the accident. The car. The mountain road. The guardrail. The fall

Not strong. Not yet. He was still too drained to call it strength. But something had shifted underneath everything, something deep and structural, like a foundation being quietly reinforced while the house above it stayed exactly the same. And he could remember everything. Every plant. Every formula. Every technique. Every ancient thing that had poured into his brain was still there, sitting perfectly in his memory like it had always been there and he had simply forgotten to look for it. That was not normal, None of this was normal. At that moment, the realization moved through him slow and cold like ice water. He pushed himself up onto one elbow and reached up to his chest with one hand. The birthmark. The one he had carried his whole life, the strange mark that had always been there, that he had never been able to explain, that doctors had looked at and shrugged and called nothing important. He pulled his shirt aside. It was gone. The skin where it had been was completely cle

At that moment William did not say another word. He just stepped forward and wrapped his arms around his mother and held on. He held her the way a man holds onto something he thought he would never get back. Tight. Both arms. His face pressed against her shoulder like he was a child again and the world outside did not exist. Then he started sobbing. Not quiet crying. Real sobbing. The kind that comes from somewhere deep and does not ask permission before it comes out. Immediately his shoulders shook with it. His breath kept breaking in the middle. He could not stop it even if he wanted to and he did not try. Hearing what was happening his mother froze for just a second. She had known calling off a wedding was painful. She had expected him to be hurt and maybe a little lost. But she had not expected this. Not William. Not her son who had always been the one holding everything together, always composed, always focused, always moving forward. She wrapped both arms around him tigh