Tell Me How You Know

I replayed the video three times.

Each time, Caelan’s voice carried the same desperation.

Not again.

The footage had supposedly been recorded on the night I died, yet his words suggested he had already experienced my death before it happened.

Father watched me from the hospital bed.

“What does he mean?”

“I don’t know.”

That was not entirely true.

I knew what the words might mean because I had returned to the past myself.

But accepting that Caelan shared my impossible experience required me to reconsider everything—the future-dated file, his presence at the wedding, and the certainty with which he had identified Father’s poisoning.

Caelan entered the room.

His gaze moved from the laptop to my face.

“Where did you get that video?”

“Lucien.”

Father pressed the button that raised his bed. “Mr. Voss, I believe my daughter asked you a question.”

Caelan closed the door.

“The footage is altered.”

“It shows your face and your injury,” I said. “You have the scar.”

“That proves I was injured at some point. It doesn’t prove when.”

“You knew which medicine would save my father.”

“The laboratory—”

“Stop lying.”

My voice shook, but I did not lower it.

Father looked between us. “What aren’t you telling us?”

Caelan remained silent.

I unplugged the flash drive and slipped it into my pocket.

“Father, I need to speak with my husband alone.”

“Elara—”

“Please.”

He studied my face, then nodded. A nurse helped him into a wheelchair and took him for additional tests.

The moment the door closed, I faced Caelan.

“Tell me how you know.”

“Know what?”

“That Lucien would steal from us. That Father’s medicine was poisoned. That I would drown.”

He crossed the room and pulled the blinds shut.

“Lower your voice.”

“Why? Is Crowne listening?”

His reaction was immediate.

He gripped my shoulders. “Who told you that name?”

“Lucien.”

“What else did he tell you?”

“That someone inside your company has been watching me for years.”

Caelan released me and paced toward the window.

I had never seen him look uncertain before.

“Lucien is being used,” he said. “He knows enough to be dangerous but not enough to understand the people behind him.”

“Who is Crowne?”

“I don’t know.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“I know the name. I know they have influence inside Voss Industries, Mercer Holdings, and the Vale Group. I don’t know who leads them.”

“And the file?”

Caelan looked at me.

“The police report came from Crowne.”

“From the future?”

“It was sent to me six months ago.”

My breath caught.

Six months before our wedding, someone had given him evidence of a death that had not happened.

“Why didn’t you warn me?”

“I tried.”

I remembered the reception where Caelan had approached me months before my wedding. Lucien had pulled me away before he could speak. Later that night, Selene told me Caelan wanted to undermine our engagement.

I had never given him another opportunity.

“You could have told my father.”

“Gideon believed Lucien was trustworthy. Any accusation without evidence would have driven you closer to him.”

“That still doesn’t explain the bridge.”

“No.”

“Or the words in the video.”

“No.”

Anger surged through me.

“You demanded that I marry you while hiding the fact that you knew I would be murdered.”

“I accepted your proposal.”

“You came to the wedding expecting me to stop it.”

His silence answered me.

The pieces aligned with terrifying precision.

Caelan had not been surprised when I rejected Lucien. He had known about the stolen transfer before I exposed it. He had prepared the treatment Father needed before the poisoning was confirmed.

He possessed memories or information no one in this timeline should have.

I stepped closer until only a breath separated us.

“In the ballroom, you told my father I knew exactly what I was doing. How could you possibly know that?”

Caelan’s eyes searched mine.

“Because you looked at Lucien the same way you did at the end.”

“At the end of what?”

He closed his eyes briefly, as if the answer caused him pain.

I forced the words past my lips.

“Did you watch me die?”

“Yes.”

The confession hollowed the air from my lungs.

“Why were you on the bridge?”

“I was trying to reach you.”

“How did you know where I would be?”

He turned away.

I caught his uninjured arm.

“No more half-truths. Our contract is over unless you tell me everything.”

He looked down at my hand.

“When I reveal what I know, you will never trust me again.”

“I don’t trust you now.”

Pain flickered across his face.

“You should return to your father.”

“I’m not leaving.”

A phone vibrated inside his coat. He checked the message, and every trace of emotion vanished.

“What happened?”

He showed me the screen.

Security footage from Mercer House displayed Selene entering Father’s study. She opened his safe and removed a sealed document.

The timestamp showed it was happening now.

Father’s original succession agreement was inside that safe. In my first life, the document disappeared after his death, allowing Selene to claim a controlling share of Mercer Holdings.

I moved toward the door.

Caelan stopped me.

“My team will intercept her.”

“You knew she would steal it.”

“I suspected.”

“No. You knew.”

I looked into the eyes of the man who had been waiting at my wedding before I ever chose him.

“The first time Father died, Selene took that document, didn’t she?”

Caelan became completely still.

There was no confusion in his face—only recognition.

I heard my own heartbeat.

“The first time,” I repeated. “You remember it.”

His silence was the final confirmation.

I had spent days wondering whether Caelan possessed a report from the future.

The truth was far more dangerous.

He possessed the future itself.

Before I could demand his confession, another message appeared on his phone.

His security chief had intercepted Selene, but she had not been alone.

The accompanying photograph showed a silver-haired man leaving Mercer House through a private entrance.

Caelan stared at the image.

“Octavian,” he said.

His grandfather had entered my father’s home while Father lay in the hospital.

Beneath the photograph was a message from the same unknown sender who had given me the warning at the wedding:

THE WRONG MERCER WAS NEVER THE BRIDE. SHE WAS THE SACRIFICE.