The scream never made it past Ezra’s throat before his eyes tore open. Sweat had soaked clean through the sheets beneath him, and his whole frame trembled so hard he had to press a palm to his chest, just to be sure his heart hadn’t broken through his ribs.Somehow he was still breathing. None of it made sense, because he could remember his own death in perfect detail. The rope had bitten into his wrists, and above him stood Vanessa, watching him bleed out on the floor with the exact expression she’d worn for six years, a look that said he meant nothing at all. Beside her stood Dominic, arm curled around her waist, wearing the smile of a man who’d already claimed his victory long ago. Her parents had been there too, her mother looking away so she wouldn’t have to witness it, her father spitting near his head and muttering that Ezra should’ve been thrown out years before.Darkness had swallowed everything after that.Instead he found himself back in his own bed, inside the same apartme

Ezra moved quickly down the sidewalk, his pace urgent enough that people stepped out of his path without even thinking about it. The morning air still held its early chill, and the street had just begun filling with the first wave of commuters, though none of them registered in his focus. His attention stayed locked on the corner store three blocks ahead, easily identified by its faded green awning and the neon lottery sign flickering in the window.Every detail of this exact day remained burned into his memory, scarred there in a way that had never healed properly.In the life he’d already lived once, he’d walked toward this same store at this same hour, intending to buy the last scratch ticket on the roll, the one behind the counter marked with a gold border and a lucky number stamped across the top. By the time he arrived, though, a heavyset man in a rumpled Hawaiian shirt had already been standing at the register, wallet in hand, and that man had bought the ticket and walked away

Vanessa’s denial hung thick in the air like smoke, yet Ezra didn’t even blink.He watched her standing there, face flushed red and chest heaving, her eyes darting between him and Julian like a cornered animal searching desperately for an exit. Every person in the café had turned to stare, but she remained too consumed with maintaining her act to notice any of it.“You never cheated.” Ezra echoed her own words back in a flat, unbothered tone. “Fine. Then that baby growing inside you shouldn’t have any trouble passing a paternity test.”Vanessa’s whole body froze instantly, her mouth falling open though nothing came out. Her hand drifted to her stomach without any conscious thought behind it, and that small, automatic gesture told the entire room everything it needed to know.“A simple DNA test, Vanessa, that’s all it takes. If the baby’s mine, you’ve got nothing to worry about. But if it isn’t,” Ezra tilted his head slightly, “I think we both already know exactly whose it really is.”H

Vanessa’s family wasted no time at all.The instant the words fifty million left Vanessa’s mouth for a third time, Harold had already sprung up and reached for his jacket. Marlene stood fixing her hair in front of the bathroom mirror, while Dominic browsed restaurants on his phone one-handed, his other arm still wrapped snugly around Vanessa’s waist.“The Amber Room.” Dominic angled his screen toward Vanessa and tapped the top result. “Five stars, most expensive restaurant in the entire city. Wagyu steak, imported wine, the complete experience. If we’re celebrating fifty million dollars tonight, we ought to eat like it.”“We don’t actually have that money yet, Dominic.” Marlene’s voice drifted out cautiously from the bathroom.“We will soon enough.” Vanessa smoothed down her blouse and grabbed her purse. “And once we do, I refuse to remember tonight as the evening we sat in this miserable apartment eating instant noodles after finding out. Let’s move. Dinner’s on me.”The four of them

Ezra was awake before the sun, standing in the driveway with a cup of coffee going cold in his hand, watching the same tired stretch of pavement he used to leave from at five in the morning to work double shifts he never once got thanked for. Twelve days now. He'd spent the drive back from the bar the night before running through everything still standing between him and a shelter that could actually survive what was coming, and none of it had let him sleep for more than three hours before he'd given up and come outside instead.The first Ironclad truck turned the corner and rolled to a stop in front of his parents' house right on schedule.Marcus Doyle climbed out of the passenger side first, already dressed for a work site rather than an office, a hard hat tucked under one arm and a tablet in the other. Behind him, three more trucks pulled up in sequence, disgorging a crew of roughly twenty men and women in matching gray uniforms, each one moving with the brisk, practiced efficiency