Chapter 1: Rebirth

“Is she dead?”

The question sliced through the ambulance like a knife.

Shantal Harver lay motionless on the stretcher, blood drying against her skin as sirens screamed through the city. Every breath burned. Her vision kept fading in and out.

But she heard that voice clearly.

Cold.

Impatient.

Detached.

The nurse beside her tightened her grip on the phone. “S-Sir, your wife was in a terrible car accident. She’s badly injured. We’re rushing her to the hospital now, ”

“I’m in a meeting,” the man interrupted flatly. “Call me when she dies. I’ll deal with the body then.”

The line disconnected.

For a second, even the nurse looked horrified.

But Shantal only stared at the ceiling of the ambulance, unable to move.

Ullysis Ray Ford.

Her husband.

The man she had loved enough to destroy herself for.

The man she once believed would protect her from everything.

And in the end…

he could not even pretend to care whether she survived.

Something inside her cracked quietly.

Not loudly.

Not dramatically.

Just enough to finally understand the truth.

A weak smile touched her bloodless lips.

How pathetic, she thought.

How many years had she wasted begging warmth from a man who had never loved her to begin with?

Her fingers slipped weakly off the stretcher.

The monitor beside her shrilled.

“Her heartbeat is dropping!”

“Prepare the defibrillator!”

“Move!”

Voices erupted around her, but they sounded farther away now. Her body felt unbearably heavy. Cold spread through her chest like ice water.

And strangely…

the pain in her heart hurt far more than the accident itself.

Her eyes slowly closed.

Maybe this was better.

Maybe finally,

“The patient’s heart stopped!”

Darkness swallowed everything whole.

…

When Shantal opened her eyes again, silence greeted her.

No sirens.

No shouting doctors.

No suffocating smell of blood.

Only the soft hum of an air conditioner.

Confused, she blinked at the ceiling above her.

Her bedroom ceiling.

She froze.

Slowly, she pushed herself upright. No pain shot through her body. No bandages wrapped around her skin. Her hands were smooth, uninjured, trembling against expensive silk sheets.

Her breathing turned uneven.

This was impossible.

Her gaze darted around the room.

The gray curtains.

The crystal lamp beside the bed.

The framed wedding photo she used to treasure.

Everything looked exactly the same.

Exactly like before.

“No…” she whispered.

Her eyes landed on the clock hanging against the wall.

January 1, 2020.

The air left her lungs.

Shantal stumbled out of bed and yanked open the nightstand drawer with shaking hands.

The diary.

The unopened documents.

The familiar fountain pen.

Everything was there.

Exactly one year before the accident.

Her pulse thundered painfully.

This wasn’t a dream.

She had really returned.

A strangled laugh almost escaped her as tears flooded her eyes. But for the first time in years, they were not tears of heartbreak.

They were relief.

Pure, overwhelming relief.

“Thank you, God…” she whispered hoarsely.

A second chance.

This time, she would never kneel for someone incapable of loving her.

This time, she would stop mistaking neglect for affection.

And this time…

she would save herself.

Her gaze shifted toward the papers resting quietly on the nightstand.

Divorce papers.

A bitter smile curved her lips.

Of course.

Even this, Ullysis could not do himself.

No conversation.

No explanation.

Just lawyers and signatures.

As if their marriage meant less than one of his business contracts.

In her previous life, she had refused to sign them.

She still remembered humiliating herself over and over, desperately trying to save a marriage that had already died long before the paperwork arrived.

The harder she held on…

the colder Ullysis became.

He stopped coming home.

Stopped answering her calls.

Stopped looking at her altogether.

And when he occasionally returned to the mansion, the silence between them felt crueler than hatred.

Back then, she kept asking herself why she could not let go.

Now she finally understood.

Because she had loved him more than she loved herself.

And that…

had nearly destroyed her.

Maybe, in the past, she stayed because she believed marriage would eventually soften him.

That one day, Ullysis Ray Ford would finally look at her and see more than an obligation he regretted.

What a cruel fantasy.

The truth had been sitting in front of her all along.

Even as she lay dying in that ambulance…

he was waiting for the call announcing her death.

Not because he would mourn her.

Because he wanted to be free.

The memory tightened painfully around Shantal’s chest, but this time, she did not let herself drown in it. She had spent too many years bleeding for a man who never once reached back for her.

His silence.

His indifference.

The way he could wound her without raising his voice.

It had destroyed her piece by piece while she kept pretending love could survive on sacrifice alone.

But she knew better now.

Love was not supposed to feel like begging someone to notice your pain.

Shantal lowered her gaze to the divorce papers in her hands and read through them calmly.

Ullysis might not have loved her, but he had never been stingy with money. The settlement was generous enough for her to live comfortably for the rest of her life.

In her previous life, she had rejected it without hesitation.

Back then, pride and heartbreak mattered more to her than freedom.

Now, she almost wanted to laugh at her old self.

How desperately she had clung to a cage simply because the man inside it was Ullysis.

Quietly, she gathered the papers and walked toward the study.

A few minutes later, she returned carrying another file.

Her revised version.

She sat down by the edge of the bed, picked up her phone, and dialed a familiar number.

The call connected quickly.

“Mr. Lawrence,” she said evenly. “I signed the divorce papers.”

A brief pause came from the other end.

Then, cautiously, “Mrs. Ford…?”

“I made a few revisions,” Shantal continued. “Please give them to Ullysis. If he agrees, tell him to sign.”

Her voice remained steady from beginning to end.

No trembling.

No pleading.

No quiet hope that he might suddenly change his mind.

For the first time since marrying him, Shantal realized something terrifyingly freeing.

She was no longer waiting for Ullysis to choose her.

This time,

she was the one leaving first.

At Ray Ford Corporation, the atmosphere inside the president’s office was suffocatingly cold.

“Come in.”

Ullysis Ray Ford did not look up from the documents spread across his desk as the door opened.

Mike Lawrence stepped inside holding a folder against his chest. As both the company’s legal consultant and Ullysis’s longtime friend, he rarely felt nervous entering this office.

Today was different.

Ullysis signed another document before speaking again.

“She still refuses to sign?”

His tone was flat, detached, as though discussing a delayed business contract instead of his marriage.

Mike hesitated briefly. “No. Mrs. Ford signed them.”

The pen in Ullysis’s hand paused.

“But,” Mike added carefully, “she made some changes to the property division.”

Only then did Ullysis finally lift his eyes.

Cold. Sharp. Unreadable.

A mocking sneer tugged at his lips.

“So she thinks I didn’t give her enough.”

The disappointment in his voice was faint, but there.

Of course.

Just another woman asking for more.

Ullysis had long stopped believing in love. People always wanted something eventually. Money. Status. Power.

Affection was simply the prettiest lie people used before revealing their price.

Mike stayed silent as he handed him the folder.

Something about this situation felt wrong.

Too easy.

Too clean.

Ullysis opened the documents without much interest, clearly expecting pages of revised demands and additional conditions.

But the moment his eyes landed on the paper inside,

his expression changed slightly.

Not dramatically.

Just enough for Mike to notice.

Because inside the folder was not the thick stack of legal documents he originally sent.

No asset lists.

No revised percentages.

No hidden demands.

Only one page sat quietly in his hands.

The document was only one page.

Clean.

Simple.

Final.

Shantal Harver requested nothing from him.

No extra properties.

No compensation demands.

No emotional messages hidden between legal terms.

Nothing.

Ullysis’s eyes narrowed slightly as he continued reading.

Then his expression hardened.

Attached behind the divorce agreement was another document.

A stock transfer agreement.

Shantal was returning the five percent shares his grandfather had gifted her after their marriage.

The same shares countless people in the business world would fight viciously to obtain.

Five percent of Ray Ford Corporation was not a small amount.

The yearly dividends alone were enough to guarantee luxury for several lifetimes.

Yet she gave them up without negotiation.

Without hesitation.

Without asking for anything in return.

For the first time since Mike entered the office, silence settled heavily over the room.

Ullysis stared at the papers in his hand, his jaw tightening almost imperceptibly.

This was not the Shantal he knew.

The woman he married had endured everything just to remain by his side.

His indifference.

His absence.

The humiliation of being ignored by her own husband.

Even when everyone around them quietly mocked her hopeless devotion, she still stayed.

Because pleasing his grandfather mattered to her.

Because being Mrs. Ford mattered to her.

So why now?

Why let go so easily?

“What did she say?” Ullysis finally asked.

His voice was low.

Controlled.

But something sharp hid underneath it.

Mike exchanged a quick glance with Weldon before answering carefully.

“Mrs. Harver only said…” He paused briefly. “...that she hopes you’ll review the documents as soon as possible so the divorce can be finalized quickly.”

The words landed harder than they should have.

Quickly.

As though she could not wait to leave him behind.

Ullysis’s grip tightened unconsciously around the papers, crumpling the edges.

Across the office, Weldon had initially assumed Shantal demanded more money. He had personally witnessed Ullysis instruct the legal team to prepare a generous settlement.

In Weldon’s mind, there was no reason for dissatisfaction.

But curiosity eventually got the better of him.

The moment he leaned over and read the documents himself, disbelief flashed across his face.

Shantal had not fought for more.

She had surrendered everything.

Even the shares.

Even the security most people would kill to keep.

Weldon frowned slightly.

Something about it felt unsettling.

A woman who loved this deeply did not suddenly walk away empty-handed unless something inside her had completely broken.

The office remained quiet.

Too quiet.

And for reasons Ullysis could not explain, that silence irritated him more than tears ever could.

He should have been relieved.

This was exactly what he wanted.

A clean divorce.

No drama.

No clinging.

No complications.

So why did it feel like something was slipping beyond his control?

Ullysis looked down at Shantal’s signature again.

The handwriting was calm.

Steady.

Not a single trace of reluctance.

As if she had signed away their marriage without even pausing.

For the first time in years…

Ullysis suddenly realized he could not remember the last time Shantal looked at him with hope in her eyes.

And somehow,

that disturbed him far more than it should have.