Chapter 1 I Knew What Was Coming

"Mike, I brought us some whiskey. Let's have a few drinks tonight."

Ricky Watson's falsely cheerful voice came through the door, and my stomach immediately started twisting in revulsion.

I could still remember what was going to happen tonight.

This was where my life went to hell.

In my previous life, Ricky had waited until I was too drunk to execute his rotten scheme. Once I was out cold, he slipped copies of three forged confidential company documents into a file box under my bed.

The next morning, he returned with members of the corporate audit committee. Then, he casually suggested that they check my project drafts, just for protocol reasons.

They found the forged documents almost immediately.

My career was over right then and there.

Nothing I said mattered; no one believed I had been framed.

The Chief Engineer position I had spent years working toward went up in a puff of smoke overnight, and the accusation followed me long after I left the company.

Word spread throughout the industry that I had leaked proprietary documents. My name was blacklisted, my reputation was destroyed, and the engineering career I had devoted my life to was over.

Ricky stepped neatly into the position I had lost.

Then, he took even more from me.

He slept with my fiancée, Andrea Gates, and eventually got me to spend 10 years raising his son as my own.

I never discovered the truth until I was lying in an ICU bed, my body ruined after years of working myself to exhaustion.

Ricky brought Andrea and the boy to see me as I lay on my deathbed.

They were not there to say goodbye.

They had come to humiliate me one last time.

"Mike, your whole life has been one big joke." Ricky stood beside my hospital bed with a smug grin. "Your Chief Engineer position became mine. Your woman became mine. Even the son you raised for 10 years was actually mine."

Andrea leaned comfortably against him as if that were where she had always belonged.

The disgust in her eyes hurt even more than Ricky's smile.

"I would've taken my son and gone to Ricky years ago if you hadn't oh-so willingly given me your paycheck every month," she sneered. "A loser like you isn't even good enough to shine his shoes."

The pounding on the door dragged me back to the present.

"Mike! You home? Open up!" Ricky sounded impatient now.

I stared at the door as my hands slowly balled into fists.

For a moment there, all I wanted was to grab a knife and yank that door wide open just so I could end everything right there.

However, I quickly forced myself to calm down.

After all, I now knew Ricky's plans. I knew what he'd do tonight, what would happen tomorrow, and how far his betrayal would go.

This time, I wouldn't walk blindly into the trap he set for me. Instead, I would ensure he returned everything he took from me, with interest.

I crossed the room and opened my desk drawer. Then, I took out an old backup phone, switched on the voice recorder, and slipped it face down beneath a messy pile of papers and stationery.

Before I headed for the door, I glanced toward the top of the closet.

There was a tiny security camera hidden there.

I had installed it only a few days earlier after hearing about the rampant break-ins in the neighborhood. In my previous life, a power outage had knocked the camera offline that night, leaving me without a single piece of evidence to prove what Ricky had done.

This time, the small red indicator light continued blinking steadily in the darkness.

I checked the room one last time.

Everything was ready.

Only then did I walk to the front door and pull it open.

Ricky stood outside with two bottles of expensive bourbon in one hand and several containers of takeout in the other.