Chapter 1

The Kane brothers stood before my father in the Moretti council chamber, waiting for Bianca and me to choose our personal guards.

I stared at them without speaking.

Bianca glanced at me and pressed her lips together.

"Fine. I'll take Julian," she said. "Elena is more vulnerable than I am. Gabriel is stronger, so he should protect her."

She stepped away from Gabriel and moved gracefully to Julian's side.

Gabriel's expression changed at once.

I barely noticed. I was still trying to understand how I had returned to this exact moment.

The same thing had happened in my first life.

Gabriel and Bianca had chosen each other the moment they met. When Bianca noticed me hesitating over Julian, she offered to switch guards.

Back then, I had believed she was genuinely trying to give me the stronger protector.

I refused because I didn't want her to sacrifice anything for me. More importantly, I couldn't bear the thought of Julian being sent back to the brutal training compound where he had spent most of his childhood.

Seven years later, when the Moretti yacht sank in the North Atlantic, Bianca played the same trick again.

She kept saying she couldn't take my thermal survival suit.

But she never stopped Gabriel and Julian from pulling it off my body and fastening it around hers.

Gabriel was a certified rescue diver. A section of floating wreckage was within Bianca's reach.

She could have survived without my suit.

But Bianca knew me too well. She knew I would never stand there and watch someone sacrifice herself for me.

She only had to offer.

I would always be the one who refused.

She lost nothing and still walked away looking selfless.

Not this time.

"All right," I said.

Bianca's smile froze.

Julian looked at me sharply. Shock flickered across his face, followed by something much harder to read.

"No."

My father's voice cut through the chamber.

He looked directly at Bianca.

"You are the eldest daughter of the Moretti family. Your safety comes first. Julian can't speak. If something happens, he can't even call for backup. I won't entrust your life to him."

A small trace of relief passed over Bianca's face.

She wiped the corner of one eye and opened her mouth. "But Elena—"

"I can speak."

The low male voice turned my blood cold.

Every person in the chamber fell silent.

Julian raised his head.

In my first life, he hadn't spoken once in seven years.

I had taken him to trauma specialists from Boston to Zurich. I had spent thousands of hours learning sign language so he would never feel alone. I had told him jokes every night, even though he never laughed or answered.

He had let me believe the shooting that killed his parents had stolen his voice.

Now, the moment there was a chance he might become my guard again, he finally chose to speak.

I stared into his gray-blue eyes.

That look didn't belong to a nineteen-year-old boy. It belonged to a man who had already watched me drown once.

Julian had come back too.

So this was how he intended to repay the life he owed me.

Given another chance, his first decision was still to avoid becoming mine.

He didn't know I no longer wanted him.

"If you're concerned about my combat ability, Don Moretti, you can test me again," Julian continued.

I didn't doubt his ability.

After I died in our first life, my soul remained on the freezing water long enough to watch him protect Bianca until the rescue team arrived. He moved with a speed and precision I had never seen before, driving a speargun bolt through an attacking shark before it could reach her.

Meanwhile, I had spent years learning to shoot and fight because I was afraid my father would send my supposedly helpless guard away.

Julian had never needed me to protect him.

He had only allowed me to believe he did.

My father ordered one of the family's senior combat instructors forward.

The fight lasted less than a minute.

In three moves, Julian put the man flat on his back and pinned his arm behind him.

My father's expression shifted.

Bianca's disappointment disappeared just as quickly.

Julian had always been the more handsome of the two brothers. If everyone hadn't believed he was mute and emotionally damaged, Bianca might have chosen him from the beginning.

My father considered the brothers for another moment before nodding.

"Fine. Julian will protect Bianca."

He turned toward Gabriel.

"You'll be assigned to Elena."

Gabriel looked at me.

His gaze stopped on the scar running from my left cheek to behind my ear. The disgust on his face lasted only a second, but it was impossible to miss.

Then he dropped to one knee before my father.

"Don Moretti, send me back to the training compound."

The entire room went silent.

Gabriel lowered his head.

"I would rather go back than serve Elena."