Bake my love

                                  The Last Breath, The First Choice

                                  Five Years Ago—The First Timeline

The mirror reflected a ghost.

I touched my hollow cheeks, traced the purple bruises blooming across my collarbone. Twenty-three years old, and I looked like I had lived a hundred lifetimes of suffering. All of them spent loving Richard Ashford.

"Aria!" His voice thundered through the penthouse, and my body flinched before my mind could catch up. Muscle memory. Fear memory.

I grabbed the edge of the marble counter, steadied myself. "Coming."

The living room reeked of expensive whiskey and cheaper perfume—her perfume. Lila stood beside the floor-to-ceiling windows, her red dress clinging to curves I no longer possessed. My sister. My replacement.

Richard sat sprawled on the leather sofa, his steel-gray eyes tracking my movements like a predator assessing prey. Even disheveled, even cruel, he was devastatingly beautiful. Dark hair, sharp jaw, shoulders that could carry the weight of his billion-dollar empire.

But not the weight of a marriage.

"Sign it." He slid papers across the glass coffee table.

Divorce papers.

My hands trembled as I picked them up. "Richard, please. We can fix this. I can be better—"

"Better?" Lila laughed, the sound like breaking crystal. "Aria, you have been a ghost haunting this marriage for three years. Richard deserves someone alive."

I looked at my husband. "Do you love her?"

"Does it matter?" His voice was cold, efficient. The same voice he used in boardrooms to destroy competitors. "You have been useful, Aria. Your father's company merger went through. Your purpose is complete."

Useful. Purpose. Never loved.

The truth hit harder than his fists ever had.

"I gave you everything," I whispered. "My family, my freedom, my—"

"Your what?" Richard stood, and I instinctively stepped back. He noticed. Something flickered across his face—satisfaction? "Your pathetic devotion? I never asked for it."

"You married me."

"I married a business opportunity." He moved closer, and I smelled whiskey on his breath. "Sign the papers, Aria. Make this easy."

"And if I do not?"

His hand shot out, gripping my chin with bruising force. My vision blurred with tears, but I would not let them fall. Not anymore.

"Then I make your life more miserable than it already is." His thumb pressed against my throat, right where my pulse hammered. "Is that what you want? More nights locked in the basement? More meals withheld until you learn obedience?"

Lila giggled. Actually giggled.

I yanked away from his grip, tasted blood where I bit my lip. "I will sign."

"Smart girl." Richard released me like I was contaminated.

My hand shook so violently I could barely hold the pen. Three years of marriage, reduced to a signature. Three years of hoping he would see me, really see me, not the timid creature he had molded through systematic destruction.

I signed.

"There." I dropped the pen. "Are we done?"

"Not quite." Richard pulled out his phone, typed something. "I need you gone by morning. Pack light. You came with nothing, you leave with nothing."

"My mother's necklace—"

"Sold it last month." He did not even look up. "Gambling debts."

The room tilted. That necklace was the only thing I had left of her. The only piece of my old life, before Richard consumed everything else.

"You monster," I breathed.

His head snapped up, eyes blazing with something dangerous. "What did you say?"

Lila touched his arm. "Richard, she's not worth it."

But he shook her off, crossed the distance between us in two strides. His hand wrapped around my throat—not squeezing, just holding. A promise of violence.

"Say it again," he whispered in my ear. "Give me a reason."

I should have stayed quiet. Should have been the obedient, broken thing he expected.

Instead, I smiled. "Monster. Coward. Heartless bastard. Is that enough reason?"

His grip tightened. Black spots danced across my vision. Somewhere far away, Lila was screaming, but the sound felt distant, unimportant.

This was it, then. This was how I died. Strangled by the man I loved, in front of the sister who betrayed me.

The darkness swallowed me whole.

I woke up to silk sheets and morning sunlight.

My hands flew to my throat—smooth, unblemished. I sat up, heart pounding, and looked around the unfamiliar bedroom. No, not unfamiliar. Familiar in the way nightmares are familiar.

This was my childhood bedroom. In my father's house.

My phone buzzed on the nightstand. The date glowed on the screen: Five years earlier.

And below it, a calendar notification: Engagement party with Richard Ashford tonight.

I started laughing. Then I started planning his destruction.