Chapter 1

To protect his precious childhood sweetheart, my husband forced me to dress up as her, using me as bait to draw out a twisted serial killer.

I pleaded with him, "I don't want to go."

He had softly stroked my cheek, his voice dripping with ice as he spat, "If you don't go, I'll pull the plug on your mother's ventilator."

Later that night, I was cornered in a dark alley and stabbed twenty times. I bled out on the cold concrete.

When the police called him to come and claim my body, he just sneered.

"Pathetic. You couldn't even keep a psycho occupied! Drop the act. Get back out to that alley tonight and lure him out again."

*****

After I died, my soul found itself tethered to Jonathan Rivers.

I floated in the sterile hospital room, watching him lovingly ladle out a bowl of soup. He blew on the spoon softly before offering it to Charlotte White's lips.

"I spent three hours simmering this," he murmured. "Dr. Lee said the broth will speed up your recovery."

He fed her patiently. His eyes grew red and glossy as his gaze dropped to her heavily bandaged right hand.

"This is all Emily Linwood's fault. If it weren't for her, that psycho never would have targeted you in the first place! And now she has the nerve to pull a disappearing act!"

The moment my name crossed his lips, all his tenderness vanished, replaced by an unmistakable disgust.

Sharp stabs of pain radiated through my chest, one after another, leaving me suffocating and gasping for breath.

We had been married for five years. He always claimed he hated cooking, so I never let him set foot in the kitchen.

I treated him like royalty. I wouldn't even let him wash a single dish.

It was a bitter irony: after all those years, the first time he finally decided to cook, it wasn't for me but for her.

Charlotte offered him a frail smile. "It's fine, Jonathan. It's just a hand."

"Your hands are meant for saving lives!" Jonathan snapped defensively. "Emily is nothing but a parasite! The only marginally useful thing she's ever done was dressing up as you to draw that freak out."

"Have you heard from her?" Charlotte asked, her brow furrowing in faux concern as she desperately tried to suppress a smug smile. "You don't think something actually happened to her, do you?"

Jonathan scoffed. He opened his mouth to reply, but his phone suddenly buzzed.

Hovering over his shoulder, I saw my own name flashing on the caller ID.

But I was already dead. Who the hell was calling him from my phone?

Jonathan held the screen up for Charlotte to see, a mocking smirk playing on his lips. "See? She couldn't even hold out for two days."

To prove his point, he deliberately let it ring for another ten seconds before finally answering. He didn't even wait for a greeting; he just launched into a vicious tirade.

"You pathetic idiot! You couldn't even stop a psycho from getting away! Don't forget, Charlotte got hurt because of you! Stop playing games and get your ass back to that alley tonight."

There was no response. Just the faint sound of ragged breathing came out on the other end of the line.

With a flicker of irritation, Jonathan raised his tone. "Are you listening to me..."

Before he could finish, the call abruptly disconnected.

His face darkened, his jaw clenching so hard that his teeth ground together. "Perfect. Now she's hanging up on me?

"I'm calling the hospital to shut off her mother's life support right now. Let's see how long she can keep up this little disappearing act."

My ghostly body froze. I started shaking uncontrollably.

"Jonathan! Don't you dare!" I screamed hysterically.

He had used my dying mother to blackmail me into this suicide mission once, and now he was pulling the same sick stunt.

Charlotte reached out with her uninjured left hand, catching his sleeve. She offered a pale smile.

"Don't be so harsh on her. I get why she doesn't want to go back out there. It is dangerous, after all."

"Absolutely not," Jonathan shot back. "We need to flush this guy out so that you can finally be safe.

"Don't worry. As long as her mother's breathing relies on my bank account, Emily has no right to say no to me."

Looking incredibly pleased with himself, Jonathan sat back down, peeled an orange, and tenderly fed her a slice.

A fleeting gleam of triumph flashed in Charlotte's eyes before she expertly hid it.

I clenched my ghostly fists, staring at them with bloodshot eyes.

From beginning to end, it never once crossed his mind that I might actually be dead.

It wasn't that I didn't want to answer him. I couldn't.

My body was still rotting in that damp, freezing alleyway.

Twenty times the cold steel tore into me, ripping flesh from bone. That memory was a recurring nightmare that tore my soul apart every single time.

I closed my eyes and let out a bitter laugh. I finally saw it clearly: in his eyes, my life wasn't even worth a single one of Charlotte's fingers.