Chapter 1

The moment they carried out my sentence, only one thought filled my mind.

I was innocent.

My name was Vera Stanton. I was 34 years old, chief of obstetrics and gynecology at the state Women & Infants Hospital, and a candidate for deputy director.

I had gone ten consecutive years without a single complication in the delivery room. Even my fiancé was recognized as the top surgeon in the entire hospital.

Everyone said I was blessed. I had it all… career, love and a bright future.

I believed that too. I thought my life was charmed.

None of that mattered now. My perfect life was over.

I had not made a surgical error. The patient was already dead by the time I arrived.

Still, no one believed me.

They had witnesses, physical evidence and surveillance footage. Every piece of it pointed at me.

The investigation determined that I had administered a lethal overdose of anesthesia, and my fingerprints were somehow on the syringe. Even security cameras showed me entering the operating room.

Even my fiancé, Cole Barrett, took the stand and testified against me.

"Vera was desperate to lock down the deputy director title. She was grabbing every surgery she could get her hands on during that stretch.

"The day it happened, she was already in rough shape. I tried to talk her out of it, but she wouldn't listen. She told me that once she finished that surgery, the position was as good as hers.

"I never thought it'd come to this... I thought she was at the very least a doctor with some integrity."

I fought back with everything I had, but his testimony was too convincing. Everyone believed him. They praised him for having the courage to turn in his own fiancée and called me a monster.

It was not until after my death that I learned the truth.

The surgery had been performed by his junior from medical school, Nina Foster. The patient had been Nina's. She was the one who administered the anesthesia and she was the one who made the fatal mistake.

Cole had called me in at the last minute to take the fall for her. He tampered with the surveillance footage and swapped the syringe so my fingerprints would be on it.

Every last piece of it was a trap he had set just to shield the woman he truly cared about.

The day the verdict was announced, my parents were ambushed by reporters and the victim's family outside the courthouse. The weight of it broke them. Three days after my execution, they threw themselves off a building.

I watched it happen as a spirit, powerless to stop it.

I was consumed by hatred. I refused to accept it. Even in death, I could not rest.

The fury swallowed me whole and, in that same instant, my eyes snapped open.

Dim streetlight filtered through a car window and I grabbed my phone.

It was March 29, 2026, 9:22 pm.

I had come back, dropped right into the driver's seat 30 minutes before the surgery, already on my way to the hospital.

I sat in the driver's seat, my heart hammering so hard it felt like it might burst out of my chest.

My phone buzzed, and Cole's name flashed across the screen.

"Vera, where are you?

"The patient's about to deliver. The family asked for you by name. They came here specifically for your reputation.

"Everything's prepped on this end. We're just waiting on you!"

His voice was strained and urgent, nothing like the calm, collected surgeon everyone knew him to be.