Frozen Revenge

More messages came in. Ethan's sister. His brother. His father. Even some of their mutual friends. They all knew. They had probably known for months. And not one of them had warned her.

The betrayal cut deeper than any knife could.

Maya started walking. She didn't know where she was going. She had no family left—her parents had died in a car accident five years ago. She had poured everything into Ethan, into being the perfect wife, into building a life together. She had no one else.

The streets were quiet. It was late, almost midnight. Christmas lights twinkled on houses, reminding her of everything she had lost. She had been looking forward to Christmas, had planned a whole dinner, had bought gifts for everyone. What a fool she had been.

Her feet carried her to the park where she and Ethan had their first date. She sat on the same bench, remembering how sweet he had been that night. How he had held her hand and promised her the world. Had any of it been real? Or had she been a target from the very beginning?

The cold started seeping into her bones. Her thin dress offered no protection against the freezing wind. Maybe she should just stay here, she thought numbly. Let the cold take her. What did she have to live for anyway?

But then anger sparked in her chest. Hot and fierce and burning.

No.

She wouldn't give them the satisfaction. She wouldn't let Ethan and Vanessa live happily ever after while she suffered. She wouldn't let them win.

Maya stood up from the bench, her legs shaky but determined. She would survive this. Somehow. She would make them regret what they had done to her. She didn't know how yet, but she would find a way. She would—

Suddenly, the world tilted.

Maya felt a strange pulling sensation, like her entire body was being stretched and compressed at the same time. Colors blurred around her. The park disappeared. Everything went dark.

And then, nothing.

When Maya opened her eyes, she was lying in a bed. Soft sheets, familiar ceiling. Sunlight streaming through curtains she recognized.

She sat up quickly, her heart racing. This was her old apartment. The one she had lived in before she married Ethan. But that was impossible. She had sold this place three years ago.

Maya stumbled out of bed and grabbed her phone from the nightstand. The date on the screen made her freeze.

December 3rd. Three years ago. Exactly one month before she married Ethan.

Her hands started shaking. This couldn't be real. She must be dreaming. Or dead. Or losing her mind.

But everything felt so solid. So real. The phone in her hand, the floor beneath her feet, the sound of traffic outside her window.

Maya walked to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. Her face stared back at her—younger, without the stress lines that had appeared over the past three years. Her hair was longer, darker, the way she used to wear it before Ethan had suggested she cut and dye it.

A laugh bubbled up in her throat, half hysterical. She had been given a second chance. Somehow, impossibly, she had traveled back in time.

She had thirty days before her wedding day. Thirty days to change everything.

And this time, Maya thought as she looked at her reflection with fierce determination, she would make them all pay.

Her phone buzzed with an incoming call. The name on the screen made her stomach drop.

"Ethan Hart"