CHAPTER 2: I EMPTIED HIS BUNKER AND WENT TO THE MAFIA HEIR

I ran to the closet and opened the safe. Code: 0812 - Bianca's birthday. He used his mistress's birthday for OUR safe. The insult made me shake.

Inside was what I remembered. The bunker deed. The master key card - black, with a silver chip. And five stacks of cash. $20 million dollars. Money my father left for our future, that Damian was saving to build a new life with Bianca after I died.

And the gun. A small black Glock. My father's gun. Damian never knew I knew how to use it. My father taught me before he died.

I took everything. Every dollar, every document, the key card, the gun. I left the safe empty and open, like a mouth screaming.

"Elena! Are you deaf? I said get Bianca's vitamins!" He banged the bedroom door. He never knocked. He always banged.

I slipped the cash and card into my backpack - the same backpack he bought me for our honeymoon that he said was cheap. I zipped it up.

Then I opened the bedroom door.

Damian Reid stood there in his $5,000 suit, handsome as a devil, holding Bianca's hand like she was fragile glass. Bianca was in a white dress that showed her belly, fake tears in her eyes.

"Finally. Why do you take so long? Bianca has been waiting for -" he started.

I slapped him. Hard. Across his perfect, billionaire face. The sound echoed.

Both of them froze. Damian's eyes went wide. In three years of marriage, I had never raised my voice, let alone my hand.

"Don't ever command me again, Damian," I said, my voice cold, steady. Not shaking. "I am not your maid. I am not Bianca's servant. I am Elena Voss, daughter of the man who made you."

"Are you crazy?!" He grabbed my wrist, squeezing hard. "You hit me? For her? Have you lost your mind?"

Bianca gasped and played her part perfectly. "Damian, don't! She is just jealous because I am giving you a son! Elena, I know you can't have children, but please don't hurt Damian -"

I smiled. The same cold smile from before.

"Bianca, dear," I said softly, pulling my wrist free. "If you talk about my body again, I will cut your tongue out. Understand?"

Her face went white. She really believed me this time.

Damian looked at me like I was a stranger. "Elena, what happened to you?"

"I woke up," I said. "Now get out of my way. I have a divorce to file and a bunker to empty."

I pushed past them. I didn't look back.

Downstairs, the kitchen was exactly as I remembered. On the counter was the black business card I had thrown in the trash in my last life, but in this life, it was still clean, still new. The card Damian had gotten and laughed at.

It said: KILLIAN THORNE - THORNE SECURITY - IF YOU WANT TO LIVE AFTER THE END, CALL.

Everyone in Raven City knew Killian Thorne. 28 years old. Mafia heir. His father owned the entire underground. Killian himself owned the private military company that guarded presidents. He lived in the black mansion next to ours, the one with no lights, the one Damian told me to never look at.

In my last life, I learned from the bunker monitors that Killian's mansion had the only other bunker in Raven City that survived the first week. Damian's bunker failed on Day 9 because Bianca opened the door for her mother, letting zombies in. Killian's bunker never failed.

I walked out of our mansion gate. The security guards looked shocked. Mrs. Reid never left without permission.

I walked straight to the black mansion. The gates opened before I even knocked. Like he knew I was coming.

A man in black suit opened the door. "Mrs. Reid. Mr. Thorne is waiting."

Inside, the mansion was dark, cold, and smelled like expensive wood and guns. And in the middle of the living room, sitting on a black throne-like chair, was Killian Thorne.

He was beautiful in a terrifying way. Sharp jaw, eyes like ice, tall, wearing a black shirt open at the neck, tattoos crawling up his neck. He was holding a glass of whiskey at 7 AM. And he was looking at me like I was already his.

"Elena Voss," he said, his voice deep, low, like gravel. "You finally called. I've been watching you for three years. Wondering when you'd stop crying over that boy next door."

"You have $20 million and information that will save my life in seven days," he said, standing up. "That's a very expensive claim, Mrs. Reid. If you lie to me, I will break your pretty legs."

I didn't flinch. I opened my backpack and dumped the $20 million cash on his black marble floor. Stacks and stacks of money fell, loud.

"I don't lie, Mr. Thorne," I said, looking up at him, my eyes hard. "In seven days, on June 19th, at 2:13 PM, a virus will hit Raven City. It will turn people into flesh-eating monsters. The government will fall in three hours. The bunker next door will fail on Day 9 because that idiot's mistress will open the door."

He stared at me, then at the money, then back at me. No one ever threw money at Killian Thorne.

"And what do you want from me?" he asked, now very close.

I held up the bunker master key card. "I want you to help me empty his bunker today. All the food, medicine, weapons. Move it to YOUR bunker. Then, I want to live in your bunker. With you. As your partner. Not your prisoner."

He laughed. A real laugh. Loud and shocked.

"Partner?" He took the key card from my hand, his fingers brushing mine. "Mrs. Reid, you come to a mafia heir's house, throw $20 million at his feet, tell him the world will end in seven days, and you want to be my partner?"

"Yes," I said. "Because on Day 10, Damian Reid will come to your gate, bleeding, begging to be let in. And I want to be the one who says no."

Killian Thorne looked at me for a long second. Then he smiled. A slow, dangerous, hungry smile.

"Mrs. Reid," he whispered, leaning down, his lips close to my ear, "you just made the best deal of your life. Welcome to the apocalypse."